One jab or five?
A new five-in-one vaccination will be introduced in September 2004 to protect babies against diptheria, tetanus, whooping cough, Hib and polio. We look at what this means for parents, and find out what people are worrying about
The government has unveiled plans for a shake-up to the current immunisation programme in the UK. Perhaps the most controversial change is the introduction of a new five-in-one vaccine for babies, to replace the current four-in-one jab offered to babies at two, three and four months of age, with boosters for pre-schoolers and teenagers. The current jab vaccinates against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and Hib, and is supplemented by a separate oral polio vaccine. The new five-in-one jab, which includes a polio vaccine, will be offered to all UK babies at the same stages from September 2004.
Why the changes?
Currently, a live polio vaccine is used, which means that, in rare cases, babies may go on to develop the disease itself. The changes, however, include swapping the live vaccine for an inactivated type, which cannot cause polio.
Although the new vaccine is not as effective at protecting whole populations as the live type, it gives good immunity to individuals - and, because polio has been eradicated from much of the world, it's thought that the new vaccine will be sufficient to keep the disease at bay.
Mercury-autism link rejected
The new pertussis vaccine is also free from thiomersal - the mercury preservative which is also used in the MMR vaccine, and which has caused controversy amongst some parents who believe it may be linked with autism. A recent review by the US Institutes of Medicine has quashed the theory - and this follows the retraction, by ten of its authors, of the highly controversial paper professing the link, which was headed up by Dr Andrew Wakefield. The reason given by the HPA for the removal of thiomersal from the pertussis vaccine is that it will mean reduced environmental exposure to mercury.
Demand for more information
Pressure groups and campaigners for single vaccines are demanding more information about the new five-in-one jab before its implementation. The government has offered assurances that the jab has been trialled on over 200 children already in the UK, and none have suffered adverse side-effects. They also confirmed that the jab has been used successfully in Canada for the past seven years. However, some people have expressed anxiety that combined vaccines can overload the immune systems of young babies, resulting in adverse reactions.
Jackie Fletcher is the founder of JABS (Justice, Awareness and Basic Support), a support group for vaccine-damaged children which neither recommends nor advises against vaccinations, but which aims to promote better understanding about them. She spoke out on behalf of many parents when she said: 'With five-in-one vaccines we would want to know what safety trials have taken place. How did they find out it was safe to do it in this combination? Increasing the combinations increases the potential for an adverse reaction and restricts choice for parents, when the government said it wanted to improve choice.'
Parents 'in limbo'
Ann Coote, a fellow founder member of JABS, points out that parents who have already embarked on the current immunisation programme will be left unsure about how to proceed: 'Parents are facing a dilemma if they have just had their baby vaccinated with the old vaccine: do they wait for the new vaccine before having the subsequent vaccines because they are told it's safer?' She goes on to say that more information about the new jab needs to be disclosed now: 'The government thinks parents are either anti-vaccine or for vaccines, but it's not as simple as that - there are lots of different questions which parents want answered, but no one seems able to answer them... Parents want the information now so they can make the decision about their children. At the moment there are a lot of parents just left in limbo.'
Why should parents vaccinate?
Dr David Salisbury, vaccine expert from the Department of Health, said: 'Please do not delay having your children vaccinated. Our vaccines are extremely safe... If you delay and you do not protect your baby against, particularly whooping cough, at a young age, then you put your baby at very high risk... The safety issues are trivial compared with the benefit of protecting children.'
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Created: 12/08/2004 Updated: 13/08/2004
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