Good Morning Britain is no stranger to a heated debate, but things went one step further when a guest was accused of shouting in the face of Dr Hilary Jones by viewers.
Biba Tanya was on the morning show to discuss the MMR vaccine, following reports of claims by a woman who says she had contracted mumps from an unvaccinated child, and suffered terribly with the illness.
The mum-of-three, who has previously been on the show to argue against scaring children at Halloween, said that she doesn’t vaccinate her children.
Biba instantly interrupted another guest who said her son had contracted measles when he was too young to have the MMR injection, claiming that no-one had died from measles in the UK in the last year.
However, Dr Hilary quickly pointed out in the last year there have been 90,000 deaths from measles worldwide.
“That’s a worldwide statistic, so we are looking at malnourished children, we are looking at children who are deficient in Vitamin A. That is absolutely absurd. Measles is not a killer disease in a healthy child,” she said, before continuing her argument that a child should build up an immune system on their own.
Host Ben Shepherd was forced to step in as the argument escalated, asking for the debate to be kept calm.
Viewers were horrified by Biba’s strategy, calling her treatment of Dr Hilary rude, but also praising how Ben handled the situation.
“The year before vaccination came in, 99 children died in the UK from measles. Do you want to go back to that?” Dr Hilary asked her, who then laughed at her statement that measles isn’t “serious”.
He finished saying: “The overwhelming scientific evidence show that MMR is very safe, it protects children. Look at the stats, 20 million cases of measles has been avoided thanks to the vaccination programme, and about 4,500 deaths.
“Anyone who wants to go back to the pre-vaccination era is really not understanding what science has achieved.
“It’s a really serious disease, measles, sometimes it leads to ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis [inflammation of the brain] and, death.
“Globally it’s much worse of a problem, but in the UK it’s still there. It’s growing in Europe. Anyone who has not been vaccinated is [the] person most at risk.”
Good Morning Britain continues on weekdays from 6am on ITV.
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