Media reports of safety concerns about MMR by a handful of scientists and doctors prompted spectacular increases in notifications to medicines watchdogs, who must give permission to buy from abroad vaccines which are no longer licensed in this country.

It is unclear how many supplies actually reach parents who do not wish children to be inoculated with MMR, since manufacturers are beginning to limit production, and some types are barred from Britain on safety grounds.

The Department of Health played down the extent of the imports last night, saying they were still tiny compared with the 1.5 million doses of MMR administered on the NHS each year. But the fact remains that thousands more families are paying sums running into hundreds of pounds to get the single vaccines. Others are not having their children inoculated at all more than four years after the safety row began.

In 2000 monthly notifications of imports of measles vaccines to the medicines control agency ranged from 75 to 150 doses a month, giving a total of 1,376. Last year there were 11,818 notifications. In the first six months of this year there were 23,973, peaking in April when there were 5,897. The average monthly total for this year of nearly 4,000 contrasts with 115 in 2000 and 985 in 2001.

For mumps, the story is similar, 14,279 notifications in the first six months of this year, compared with 825 for the whole of 2000 and 17,800 in 2001. The monthly average so far this year is running at 2,380 applications, compared with 69 in 2000 and 1,483 in 2001.

Single rubella vaccines are licensed in Britain to protect women of child-bearing age who have never had the MMR jab from being infected during pregnancy and inadvertently damaging the health of their unborn babies.

The main manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, is ending production but the government is planning to buy about 50,000 doses from another manufacturer. Doctors offering an alternative to MMR have been seeking imported sources. That has led to requests for 4,500 doses of imported unlicensed rubella vaccine since May.

MMR is given free to children as part of a national vaccination programme. Families opting for children to be administered vaccines separately and privately face sizeable registration and consultation fees at clinics. Those can cost around £30 a dose for mumps and £27 for measles. Charges for rubella vaccine seem likely to rise to similar levels.

The Department of Health argues that MMR is safe and there is no link with autism or inflammatory bowel disease, as a small number of scientists have suggested. It says there is no scientific evidence to support the "safety or efficacy" of giving the vaccines separately.

Should parents be allowed access to single vaccinations? Would you allow your child to have the MMR jab?

 

01.07.2002: Measles cases quadruple
28.06.2002: MMR 'may cause 1 in 10 cases of autism'
17.06.2002: MMR row resurfaces
12.06.2002: Research gives MMR vaccination all-clear
13.03.2002: Measles returns to Scotland
08.03.2002: A healthy challenge to the media
06.03.2002: Measles spreads as jab is shunned
22.02.2002: MMR analyst urges swift research on risk group
20.02.2002: Three out of four parents favour single jabs for MMR
14.02.2002: Injection of confidence for MMR
14.02.2002: Measles outbreak grows in London
07.02.2002: Blair warning as measles panic grows
07.02.2002: Sarah Boseley: the MMR vaccination and autism
07.02.2002: Defiant parents stand by decision
07.02.2002: Catherine Bennett: needled Tony should rethink on the MMR jab
07.02.2002: MMR: the facts
07.02.2002: Leader: no compromise over MMR
06.02.2002: Q&A: measles and MMR
21.01.2002: Comment: Injecting some sense into the anti-vaccination lobby
24.12.2001: How seeds of doubt were sown by doctor
22.12.2001: Blair urged to set jab row example
10.08.2001: The battle over immunisation

 

Public health

 

Sense: Remember Rubella (pdf)
UK Public Health Association
British Medical Journal
World Health Organisation
British Medical Association
BMJ paper: Mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine and the incidence of autism
General Medical Council