BBC3 's Dying For Clear Skin - an exercise in scaremongering and crap journalism

Emotive and manipulative film-making masquerades as factual documentary

 Last night I decided to watch BBC3 for a change instead of Panorama. It was about tax havens. Too heavy for a Monday, I thought, so scrolled through and caught the end of Junior Doctors.  Apparently BBC3 is running a season of Body Beautiful programmes, targeted for its 13-25 demographic, in light of the pressure on young people to look perfect.  

 The show on this evening was “Dying for Clear Skin”; having suffered from horrendous acne as a teen and early twenties (with the occasional monthly breakout now), I suspected that it would be touching upon the drug Roaccutane, which I had been treated with twice -  at 17 and 20. 

Boy, did I underestimate that. What followed was an hour-long, scaremongering propaganda film about the dangers of Roaccutane, interwoven with highly emotive stories about young people who had apparently taken their own lives during or following, treatment with the drug. Hell, if I was 17 again and had watched this, I would have been scared off it shitless. 

The main focus of the film  is Jesse Jones,  who went missing in 2011, at 24 years old. He had recently stopped taking his course of Roaccutane for severe acne, as he believed the drug was giving him depression.  Following a frantic search, sadly his body was recovered from the foot of Ballard Down in Swanage, Dorset, five days later.  His family were understandably devastated and remain so, to this day.

His father Derek Jones, a filmmaker, understandably wanted to make a documentary about the loss of his son, and debate the use of Roaccutane and its associated risks. He acted as director, producer and cameraman. He even featured as one of the interviewees (which in my opinion, is right up there with asking my first-year journo course buddy to pose as an interviewee, a freaking, no-no).

Unfortunately what could have been an insightful and balanced debate about mental health, acne and Roaccutane with perspective  given by Jesse’s untimely death,  descended into an hour-long, nightmarish vision of the dangers of the drug, with very little room for opposing opinions. Of the only two views supporting the use of Roaccutane (Dr Radha Modgil, GP and regular television contributer) and a former Roaccutane patient called Chloe, these were given minimal airtime. Chloe, even noted with incredible insight that depression in patients might have already been there from dealing with their acne. Yet this was never explored. 

In fact, Derek Jones was only mentioned briefly at the beginning of the programme as “helping to make” it, before the credits, so any late channel hoppers would have missed it. At no other time was this alluded to thoughout the show. If he only "helped make it" then Christopher Nolan only "helped" to make the Batman Trilogy.  What resulted was a very unbalanced, dim view of Roaccutance treatment, scaremongering  and thinly veiled contempt for the manufactuers, Roche. Their strong, albeit lengthy, rebuttal statement in response to the depression accusations, read by host, BBC1 presenter Gemma Cairney, was faded in and out intermittently, giving viewers the impression of “Blah, blah, blah”.  This would NEVER fly on  BBC1, not even on Watchdog, where the reply is always clearly communicated. 

My second beef with the programme is the inclusion of the second medical expert, a dermatologist. Dr Chu had caught my attention; yesterday morning, he had been interviewed for BBC’s Newsbeat, hours before the BBC3 programme aired.  When interviewed by Newsbeat, he opined that Roaccutane was “overprescribed in the UK”.  Later on in the aired programme, “Dying…” he had to admit that there was insufficient proof of a direct causal link between Roaccutane and depression. Then the programme went onto highlight that he was the pioneer of a new laser-based acne treatment! Honestly, Radio 1 – could you have not found another dermatologist to comment on Roaccutane yesterday morning on Newsbeat?  One without a potential conflict of interest, appearing to showcase his business to  impressionable young people?  Are there really that few dermatologists on Harley Street and in the NHS that nobody could ask for a medical opinion? Or was it just laziness on behalf of the producers? 

In Derek’s own words to the Bournemouth Daily Echo; 

“Roaccutane is supposed to be a last resort drug. This film is about what happened to my son and why we think it happened to him.”
 

If only it was communicated as a grieving father’s tribute to his son and not being presented as journalistic fact, we wouldn’t have young people now worrying about asking for help with their acne.

Did you watch the show?  Your thoughts?