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The MMR minefield
Despite loud reassurances from the Government about its safety, many parents are now refusing the MMR jab, routinely given to children at 12–15 months followed by a booster at 3–5 years. The chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, is so concerned that he’s holding talks with leading doctors and nurses to discuss how to reverse the decline in uptake of the MMR injection.
There are those treading a middle path and requesting that the triple vaccine is administered in single doses, believing it may be safer. The NHS is reluctant to go down this road but the really committed are travelling abroad to find private clinics with single vaccine stocks (which are in short supply on the NHS) and paying up to £250 for treatment. All this and now we’re being told by the Government’s public health officials that there is a growing risk of a measles epidemic. What’s a parent to do?
The history of MMR
A possible link between Crohn’s disease and the MMR vaccine was raised in 1995, following the publication of research carried out by Dr Andrew Wakefield at the Royal Free Hospital in London. This research compared the incidence of Crohn’s disease (a bowel disease) in a group of people who had received the measles vaccine in 1964 with the incidence in two other groups. An association was found, but the researchers also said that there wasn’t necessarily a causal relation. Two later studies in 1997 showed no link between MMR and Crohn’s. Another study found no link either between Crohn’s and measles infection before birth. In 1999 another British study linked the MMR vaccine to autism, but this was widely criticised by researchers as being small and of poor quality. Then in January 2001, a major Finnish study was published. It followed three million children who had received MMR and apparently gives the vaccine a clean bill of health.
Others however are not convinced. About 2,000 families in Britain are taking legal action because they believe their children have been damaged by MMR, many saying that it has led to autism. Pressure groups claim there are many cases in which healthy children fell ill immediately or shortly after they received the MMR vaccine. Worried parents say they would rather risk measles, the side effects of which can range from a two-week spotty infection, to autism, a serious and life long communication disability.
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