Feb 15 2003
 

Madeleine Brindley Madeleine.Brindley@Wme.Co.Uk, The Western Mail - The National Newspaper Of Wales

PARENTS are still unconvinced about the safety of the controversial MMR jab with more than 8,000 people registering with a Welsh single-vaccine clinic.

Despite successive government campaigns to reassure parents there is no link between the triple-vaccine, bowel disease and autism, the MMR take-up rate in Wales has fallen back to 82%.

Doctors's leaders in Wales last night said they did not know what else they could do to convince the public the vaccine is safe.

Dr Andrew Dearden, chairman of the BMA's GP Committee, said, "Sooner or later they will have to accept the evidence MMR is safe."

Desumo Healthcare, which organises single-jab clinics and which was founded by Swansea moth-er-of-three Natalie Bowden, is continuing to receive up to 20 new registrations a day almost two years after it was founded.

Deborah Riding, who helped set up Desumo said, "I think our figures reflect pure demand for single vaccines as there are not that many people offering them.

"Desumo was set up for parents by parents and I would hope that because we are parents ourselves we take account of parents' concerns.

"Between 15 and 20 people are calling a day to register, so we are still pretty steady after this time. The fears parents have about MMR are still there."

The latest figures from the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) revealed that take-up of MMR in Wales fell back to 82% between July and September last year from a high of 83.8% in the previous quarter.

The rates remain lowest in the heartland of the anti-MMR campaign in the Morgannwg Health Authority area where more than a quarter of two year olds have not been vaccinated.

Take-up rates for individual health authority areas reveal the extent of the decline in MMR vaccination in the last quarter.

Just 76% of children have been vaccinated in Morgannwg compared to 76.1% between April and June, 84.3% in Gwent (85.7%),

81.9% in Dyfed-Powys (82.9%), 80% in North Wales (84.1%) and

85.7% in Bro Taf (86.2%).

Doctors fear that the public is at risk of a potentially lethal outbreak of measles when take-up rates drop below 95% - the level of vaccination recommended by the World Health Organisation.

The figures do not take into account those children who have received single vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella.

They are not counted because the majority are unlicensed vaccines - only the rubella single vaccine is licensed in the UK - and there is no way of monitoring how many children receive them, a spokeswoman for the PHLS said yesterday.

Mrs Bowden said, "Health officials go on about how the MMR rate is falling but it is these single vaccine clinics that are picking unvaccinated children up. Parents are going elsewhere to get the vaccines.

"There is not a void of children who haven't had anything - they are just trying to scare people into having MMR." A review of the work published to date about MMR by the World Health Organisation and published last month concluded that existing studies do not show evidence of an association between the risk of autism or autistic disorders and MMR vaccine.

Dr Dearden, a GP in Cardiff, said, "Cases of measles are going up and we know that the serious consequences are death and brain damage.

"Exactly the same pattern is happening now as it did with whooping cough - there was an unproven scare everyone stopped having the vaccine, children died, everyone started having the vaccine again.

"I'm puzzled as to what more we can do to reassure people. The evidence basis is sound and internationally recognised, but it has not been accepted by a significant minority.

"What will be interesting in a couple of years will be to look at the group of children who have not had MMR and compare the autism rates."

Dr Ruth Hall, chief medical officer for Wales, said, "Measles and mumps remain potentially diseases, while rubella in pregnancy is associated with miscarriage or severe effects for the baby. Over the years since the introduction of MMR vaccine the incidence of all three diseases has fallen significantly.

"The overall uptake rate of MMR is still below that needed to provide protection for our children. There are variations in uptake levels within Wales, which is contributing to recent outbreaks of mumps being seen in parts of Wales."

But Julie Loch, who is convinced her six-year-old son Oliver developed autism after having the MMR vaccine, said, "I'm not surprised at all at the success of single-jab clinics as the Government has in no way cleared up what has gone on with our children.

"The Government has not been able to restore public confidence in the triple vaccine and we still believe that Oliver reacted badly to MMR and they have nothing to convince the public otherwise."

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