New parents are being bombarded with online misinformation about the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab amid a surge in measles cases.
Baseless claims about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy – including long-debunked myths about links to autism – are regularly shared on social media groups for parents, i analysis found.
They include conspiracy theories that the jab causes “heavy metal poisoning” or that it is more dangerous than contracting measles.
Many posts also feature unverified accounts of babies becoming unwell after receiving the jab.
Social media companies including TikTok and Meta have vowed to crack down on vaccine misinformation.
But conspiracy theorists are bypassing content filters by referring to jabs as “cupcakes” or using specific emojis such as a syringe, the analysis found.
It comes amid the UK’s biggest measles outbreak since the 1990s, with MMR vaccine uptake in children at a 12-year low.
There were 1,603 suspected cases in England and Wales in 2023, compared to 735 cases in 2022 and 360 in 2021. Since October, there have been 347 confirmed cases in England and Wales, with 75 per cent of those in the West Midlands.
Just 85 per cent of children starting primary school in the UK have had both doses of the jab, according to NHS figures – well below the target of 95 per cent needed to ensure herd immunity.
This month NHS England launched a campaign urging parents to get their children vaccinated, saying that more than 3.4 million children under the age of 16 are unprotected and at risk of becoming ill.
Measles is highly contagious and can lead to serious complications and even death in young children and the clinically vulnerable.
The i analysis found TikTok videos of mothers attributing the MMR vaccine to children developing tics, autism, seizures and medical emergencies requiring hospital treatment. These claims are unsubstantiated and stories of babies becoming unwell are unverified.
On Facebook, groups geared towards vaccine-hesitant parents see users referring to the jab as “cupcake”, “v@ccines”, or emojis such as the cupcake or syringe, to avoid content moderation.
Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster, a health historian with an eight-month-old baby, said: “There’s a lot of people sharing unverified or very subjective stories of their babies having the vaccine and becoming really unhappy and unwell. We see that kind of rhetoric a lot.”
She also reported seeing a number of people recommending “heavy metal detoxes” after giving their children the MMR jab.
In the UK, the MMR contains small amount of aluminium as an adjuvant to make it work more effectively. The NHS states that there is “no evidence that the levels of aluminium we come across every day increase the risk of conditions like dementia or autism”. The MMR vaccine does not contain mercury, also known as thiomersal, the NHS said.
TikTok said it does not allow misleading, inaccurate, or false content on its platform, and employed “specialised misinformation moderators” to root out such material.
Meta, which owns Facebook, said it had removed content brought to its attention and that it consults with leading health organisations to identify misinformation.
The company also said it works with fact-checking organisations to debunk false claims around vaccines.
Experts in anti-vaccination movements have said there is growing “mistrust of general medicine” since the pandemic, with vaccine-sceptics concerned about a wide range of medical interventions.
Dr Stephanie Alice Baker, a sociology lecturer at City, University of London, said the pandemic saw a “further erosion of institutional trust” as well as some influencers “strategically sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt to profit from vaccine hesitancy”.
But scepticism over the MMR has deeper roots. Much of the misinformation in circulation echoes the panic caused by disgraced former physician Andrew Wakefield, whose fraudulent research linking the jab to autism led to a sharp decline in vaccination rates following its publication in 1998.
In 2010, the General Medical Council found Mr Wakefield had been dishonest about his research, had acted against his patients’ best interests, and had mistreated developmentally delayed children.
Medical journal The Lancet fully retracted the article and Mr Wakefield was struck off the medical register and barred from practising medicine in the UK.
Dr Arnold-Foster, who has conducted historical research on the history of the anti-vaccination movement, said unfounded claims about a link between MMR and autism have “seeped into the cultural consciousness”.
According to Dr Sophie Martucci, a public health science communication expert at the University of Warwick, health officials should redouble their efforts to engage with vaccine-hesitant parents, listen to their concerns and “meet them half-way”.
“Being able to explain the vaccine and explain the misconceptions to them is paramount,” she added.
An NHS England spokesperson said: “Measles can be very serious, the MMR vaccination offers the best protection against this infectious disease which is why the NHS is inviting millions more eligible young people who are missing a vaccination.
“The NHS vaccination strategy takes lessons from our world-leading Covid-19 vaccine programme to offer jabs in more convenient places, improve vaccine confidence and expand work with trusted community leaders to encourage as many people as possible to come forward – it is vitally important that those who are eligible come forward for their dose of protection.”
