"... I was just about to post that link but you beat me to it ..."

Goldacre also came to my mind. I listened to an interview with Ben Goldacre and Robin Williams, his uncle discussing examples from his newly published book, "Bad Science" and MMR was the lead example ~ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2403358.ht...

Goldacre made the observation that while vaccination scares occurred in various countries a different layman explanation as to why it was scary occurred for each country. In the UK it was the link between MMR and Autism. In other countries it is something different. It's sad that mums are irrational on the subject of vaccination. It saves lives.

From memory the story wasn't helped by the UK PM appearing to dither vaccinating his own child, "Blair signals support for MMR" ~ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1803609.stm and "My son has had MMR jab, says Brown (in dig at Blair)" ~ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1509845/My-son-has-ha...

   In the period January to September 2002, 32% of 
   the stories written about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, 
   as opposed to only 25% which mentioned Wakefield. [0]

So the lack of firm leadership was also a factor.

[0] The above quote is cited in wikipedia ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#cite_no... and is from an article by Goldacre in the Guardian, "The MMR hoax" ~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/30/mmr.health.med... which has conveniently been pulled for copyright reasons.

> when the mainstream media in the UK did everything they could to fan the flames yet remain for the most part innocent

What definition of "innocent" are we using?

They may not be liable, but they're not innocent.

From my read of your post and that of the parent, the two of you are in agreement on that point.

Yes, carbocation is correct, we are in agreement. The mainstream media still refuses to acknowledge their complicity in all of this. When all of this was going on in the UK, MMR scare stories were front page news but not once did I see a headline on the cover of newspaper proclaiming "MMR Hoax, Sorry My Bad" says . As Goldacre says, it's crazy to think that one man created this entire mess.