Cheri and Tony Blair refused to confirm the vaccination status of their son leo , this was somewhat catalyitic for the press who then proceeded to pump out anti vaccination propaganda.

ABSOLUTELY THERE ARE EQUIVALENTS! :/

For example, this year Dr Ben Goldacre challenged the very, very virulent anti-vax broadcasting of LBC's Jeni Barnett. A group of bloggers (including myself) even ended up going viral due to their efforts to highlight the claims made in a talk-back radio show.

I'd suggest keeping an eye on Goldacre's 'Bad Science' website for recent news about anti-vaccination 'celebrity' claims, since it's one of the (many!) interests he has.

Celebrities serve as a powerful outlet for anti-vax, or whatever other ilogical and dangerous nonsense they want to spout, because of the amount of people who pay attention to them, the simple breadth of their coverage. In Britain it wasn't really celebrities who broadcast Andrew Wakefield's self-serving, fear-mongering, MMR lies (for example), it was the press. They paid it far too much attention, gave it entirely unbalanced coverage and made the whole affair into such a spectacle that for a while it outshone the celebrities who's page space it was competing for. And not just the tabloid press, this non story about a shockingly poor piece of research was covered just as badly by broadsheets and even the BBC, when it shouldn't have made the news at all. Celebrities may have a disproprtionate voice compared to their expertise, but I would direct my concern at bad journalism, which had far more to do with this particular outrage.

I noticed quite a bit of anti-vaccine coverage on GMTV in particular with respect to pregnant women. Dr Hilary Jones said he would NOT recommend with own wife have it if she were pregnant but later backtracked, presumably having been reprimanded for it.

Quite a few of the mumsy-baby forums have threads from women who planned to get the vaccine but then found themselves receiving contradictory advice from their trusted TV doctor. In terms of people-with-the-public-ear, he rates pretty highly I suspect, and should know better.