Single jabs put children at risk

Single jabs put children at risk

Malcolm Dean
Wednesday September 5, 2001
The Guardian

A martyrdom approaches. Or even worse, a David versus Goliath victory. Either way public health will be seriously damaged. Peter Mansfield, a former GP, who has been handing out single doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines rather than the official triple MMR dose, was due to appear before the general medical council last week.

That presumably was why BBC Radio's Today programme commissioned last week's poll. Almost two thirds wanted the option of single doses. No surprise there. For two years the media have been pumping out what they naively believe are balanced stories.

It begins with a poignant interview with caring parents, whose babies have suddenly been damaged. They point to MMR as the cause of their understandable distress. Then follow sober and serious scientists. They explain autism coincides with MMR jabs but is not caused by it. Their assertions are backed by a mountain of research, but which interview leaves the most lasting impression? The pained parents of course.

Worse still, new parents are left with the utterly false impression that they face a 50:50 risk. Nothing could be further from the truth. Single doses pose far more risk than MMR. Single doses, as Japan has shown, end up with fatalities.Last week's big showdown was postponed for four weeks. Stand by for knee jerk reactions. In theory, Mansfield is being tried by his peers. In practice, the media will ensure it is little man battling against a big bullying state bureaucracy. Phooey.

The media love mavericks, but Mansfield is causing as much trouble as Andrew Wakefield, the London gastroenterologist, who first suggested the link between MMR and autism. His study involved a mere 12 cases and has long since been discredited. Earlier this year, the world's biggest study of some 1.8m children in Finland, could find no link. But an anxious public is no longer listening.

MMR, introduced in 1988, has kept all three diseases at bay, but with coverage having dropped to 85% in Britain, epidemics that will cause serious injuries and death now threaten. Herd immunity requires 95% coverage. Mansfield asserts that single doses would improve protection. But single doses leave children exposed until the cycle is completed; some cycles are never completed; and single doses contain more dangerous strains.

Parents cannot be forced to have their children immunised. But though they can place their own children at risk, they have no right to threaten other people's children. Britain should follow the US lead: parents may retain the right to refuse MMR, but lose the right to send their children to school.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,546725,00.html

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