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GP Faces Ban Over
MMR Alternative
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 Your View: MMR Doc
Is Right
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A
doctor, inundated by parents wanting an alternative to the MMR injection
for their children, is on the verge of serious professional punishment.
GP
Peter Mansfield says he is giving mums and dads what they want - but
the doctors' watchdog says it is "outside normal practice"
and must stop.
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More than 700 families
with fears about the Health Department-recommended combined measles, mumps
and rubella vaccine have visited Dr Mansfield at his twice-monthly private
clinics in Worcester.
Epidemic
Concerns were raised
over the safety of the MMR vaccine after a study in the medical journal The
Lancet in 1999 which alleged it was linked to autism and bowel disease
in children.
As a result, growing
number of parents began deciding to withhold their children from the
vaccination which is generally given at about 12-14 months old. Figures
show a 12 per cent downturn in the adminstration of MMR since then.
But a report from
the Public Health Laboratory Service shows a doubling of the incidence
of mumps in the past year and medical experts are concerned an epidemic
could be on the way.
'Moral
blackmail'
Now Dr Mansfield has
been ordered to appear before the General Medical Council's Interim Orders
Committee to face allegations that his actions in offering an MMR
substitute are "outside normal clinical practice".
The committee could
ban him for 18 months, impose restrictions on his practice and refer his
case for a full hearing to the council.
He said: "I am
prepared to fight all the way. In some cases, children are in school and
their parents are facing moral blackmail and health officials coming along
with loaded syringes.
"They are not
thoughtless people and they want to make their own choices. I can't see
what's wrong with that."
In January the Health
Department launched a campaign to reassure parents over the safety of the
MMR jab.
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