They were the ones who initially published Andrew Wakefield's now-discredited research [1] linking the MMR vaccine to autism. This research and the media attention it garnered massively undermined public trust in vaccines in both the UK and US.
It took them over a decade to officially retract the article.
"Children can experience SARS-CoV-2 postviral syndromes, but it is unclear to what extent these individuals are affected by long COVID"
We've been learning new stuff about COVID for 18 months now. I suspect we'll continue learning more about it for a long time to come. And I'm not keen to bet my kids' wellbeing on "it'll be fine" if I can avoid it (and they may yet catch it anyway - one can't wrap them in cotton wool).
Just saying - I prefer caution over complacency really.
"Patients with Long COVID report prolonged, multisystem involvement and significant disability. By seven months, many patients have not yet recovered (mainly from systemic and neurological/cognitive symptoms), have not returned to previous levels of work, and continue to experience significant symptom burden."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...
Frankly we don't really know how bad the long term effects will be for even those with "mild" illness.