It's difficult to recall a worst time for the reputations of scientists, medicine, government health departments, the WHO and the media, intertwined as they are in a seemingly never-ending series of disasters. We all look for blame after a tragedy, and we all develop extremely acute retrospective eyesight. But which of the following will have deemed to have done most damage to society, and to the aforementioned reputations ten years from now? Comments please?

The disasters are (put VCJD and SARS to one side):

- Swine flu fails to kill hundreds of thousands of Europeans

- WHO accused of being in cahoots with Big Pharma who happen to make flu vaccines

- Chief Medical Officers accused of failing to challenge WHO, and believing their own unproven models of spread of viruses and virus like particles, and of mounting "Scare Campaigns" in the media

- Media accused of failing to question Chief Medical Officers and WHO

- Doctors proven to be dishonest and of having carried out invasive and unnecessary tests in children, for example lumbar punctures, ileocolonoscopy, biopsies (some under general anaesthesia), without informed consent to indicate that MMR vaccines are linked to autism

- Media are accused of hyping the link, causing a fall in vaccination and subsequent rise in measles

- The Lancet accused of delaying retraction of their 1997 article supposedly linking MMR vaccines with autism

- And outside medicine: Climate change scientists accused of suppressing negative data

And the IPCC failing to spot an obvious error in a claim that the Himalayan icecap would melt by 2035. (It couldn't really be the case that the original date was 2350, surely, or could it?)

Not a pretty list.

One positive point on the side of the media, is that the MMR debacle was uncovered by an investigative journalist. There are no positives on the side of science, clinical medicine, bureaucracies or science journals.