FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER
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“Healing Autism: No Finer a
Cause on the Planet”
December 23, 2001
News Morgue Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp
All Hell Breaks Loose In UK Media over Blair, MMR Vax
& Autism (But Dead Silence in the US Press.)
Revelaton: Blairs Have An Autistic Relative.
Here is the Weekend Collection, so far. Thanks to R.
Miles.
·
No 10’s Fear Of Needles
·
Blair Should Say Whether Leo Has Had The Vaccine
·
Come Clean on MMR, Labour MP tells Blair
·
Blair Hints That Leo Had MMR Jab As Vaccine Rebellion
Mounts
Privacy is paramount when it comes to the young Blairs, we
are told. But
that doesn’t help parents faced with an agonising decision
report Gaby
Hinsliff and Kamal Ahmed
[The Observer.]
http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,624229,00.html
Up a steep flight of stairs in a slightly shabby
building near
London’s Victoria station is a GP’s surgery. The only
clue, among the
plastic toys and piles of magazines in the waiting room,
that it lies at the
heart of the national debate over the safety of the
controversial measles,
mumps and rubella vaccine is a picture propped up on one
of the women GPs’
desks. It features a family of grateful patients: Tony,
Cherie and Leo Blair.
The surgery is where the Prime Minister’s wife brought
their son for
mother and baby classes. It is also where, if the family
do follow Government advice, she should have brought him for that jab.
Today The Observer reveals the strongest indication yet
from those
close to the Prime Minister that his 19-month-old son,
Leo, has, in fact,
been given the MMR injection. Downing Street has so far
insisted that what
transpires behind a GP’s office door must remain private
on grounds of
medical confidentiality. But the question now is whether
the Blairs, who
have famously kept a rigid grip on their family’s privacy,
should admit the
fact publicly and instil national confidence in a
life-saving public health
measure.
The debate has shifted from whether the vaccine is safe -
as almost
the entire medical establishment insists it is - to
whether politicians
should lead by example. Does the Blairs’ right to privacy
outweigh the risk
of a measles epidemic if parents, convinced the Prime
Minister knows something they don’t, refuse the vaccine?
Some critics believe Blair’s refusal to say anything
publicly is
hampering efforts to increase MMR uptake. The latest
figures show that
parents need reassuring. In the first three months of this
year, 72 per cent
of two-year-olds in London had the MMR vaccination,
against the 85 per cent
needed to guarantee ‘herd immunity’ - the point where a
sufficient number
have had the jab to guarantee the virtual elimination of
measles. Uptake is
higher elsewhere in the country but often still below the
crucial 85 per
cent figure.
Dr Ian Gibson, Labour MP and one of the leading medical
experts at
Westminster, said Blair should set an example by talking
about his personal
response to the MMR issue. But the Blairs are only the
latest prominent
family to be drawn into this simmering row. The first
personal challenge was
in January when the then pregnant Public Health Minister,
Yvette Cooper, was
handling a routine Commons debate on vaccination. The Tory
health spokesman,
Philip Hammond, stung by allegations of scaremongering
about MMR, retorted
that ‘all three of my children aged under seven have been
vaccinated with
the triple dose vaccine’. Cooper was not forthcoming, but
when journalists
pressed her afterwards, she told them her daughter Meriel ‘has
had all her
vaccinations’ as recommended.
Cooper was still on her last days of maternity leave with
her second
child Joel when the furore over Leo Blair began two weeks
ago. As fellow
Ministers rejected enquiries, she told her press officers
that her views
were already public and could thus be repeated.
Then the Daily Mail stoked up the story. On 11 December,
the day after
a study commissioned by the Government on autism concluded
there was no link
between the condition and MMR, the paper’s parliamentary
sketchwriter
Quentin Letts revealed that his four-year-old son Claud is
autistic. The boy
has had the triple vaccine, and Letts said that while he
did not know
whether that caused his illness, it came as a ‘vicious
kick in the guts’
that Cherie Blair refused to discuss Leo’s vaccination.
Parents felt ‘stupid
and duped’, worrying that she knew something they did not,
he said. And so
began a Mail campaign, with all leading MPs known to have
young children
being asked to declare whether they had inoculated them.
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* * *
Blair Should Say Whether Leo Has Had The Vaccine
[In the Independent.]
http://argument.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=111455
For the second Christmas in succession Leo Blair has
commanded the
attention of the media. This weekend Tony Blair is under
pressure to reveal
whether his son has received the MMR vaccine, as
recommended strongly by his
own government for all toddlers. Last year, Leo was given
prominence for a
different reason. He appeared on most front pages as the
star turn on the
Blairs’ Christmas card. Since the card is released to the
media every year
as a PR exercise, the Prime Minister knew that Leo would
attract widespread
attention. He did not seem worried about privacy then.
That was the pre-election Christmas when his government’s spin- doctors were
keen to portray Mr Blair as a family man, in contrast to the childless William Hague.
Every now and again a political leader’s family becomes a
subject of
public interest. Quite often the occasions when this
happens are chosen by
the political leaders themselves. Cabinet ministers, from
Mr Blair
downwards, often trumpet the fact that their children were
sent to state
schools. Recently they have made this point with greater
intensity, to
provide a contrast with Iain Duncan Smith who pays for one
of his sons to
attend Eton. The message they seek to convey is clear: we
have our feet on
the ground, practising what we preach by ignoring the lure
of an élitist
education at a private school. Occasionally Mr Blair
chooses to give his
family a public profile unrelated to a specific policy.
Last year’s
Christmas card was not the only occasion when the media
got a glimpse of
Leo.
There are other times when a political leader has to
accept that his
family is of legitimate public interest when he would
prefer it not to be.
He cannot pick the moments when the lights are switched on
and off. The
lights shine with greatest legitimacy when there is a
direct link between
government policy and the personal conduct of the
political leader running
the Government. Mr Blair knows this to be the case from
his own experience.
When he sent one of his sons to the Oratory, a school that
had opted out of
local-authority control, there was a political row. Mr
Blair’s protests that
this was a family matter did not even convince his Press
Secretary, Alastair
Campbell, who was appalled at the decision. At the time,
Labour Party policy
was opposed to schools opting out of local-authority
control. Mr Blair
resolved the matter by changing the policy. What he could
not do was insist
unconvincingly that it was an entirely private matter.
He is trying to make that case now, even less
convincingly, over
whether young Leo has been give the MMR injection. The
Department of Health
has launched a campaign to persuade parents that their
children should
receive the injection. The Health minister, Yvette Cooper,
has said that her
children will have the MMR injection; but, as we report on
the front page,
the Department of Health is having problems convincing
parents. Mr Blair’s
silence is part of the department’s problem. It conveys
Prime Ministerial
doubt about MMR. The persistent refusal to reveal their
decision will
nurture a wider suspicion that the Blairs decided not to
follow the advice
of the Prime Minister’s own health department. Mr Blair
should come clean.
His family deserves as much privacy as possible, but not
when his actions as
a parent may conflict with the policies of his government.
* * *
[By Benedict Brogan in the UK Telegraph.]
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/22/nmmr2
2.xml
Tony Blair should show leadership by declaring whether he
has allowed
his baby son Leo to receive the MMR vaccine, one of Labour’s
most distinguished scientific experts said yesterday.
Dr Ian Gibson, the MP who chairs the Commons science and
technology
select committee, said the Prime Minister and his
colleagues should set an
example by coming clean about their personal response to a
flagship Government policy.
He said Ministers should be honest with the public
about their
family’s attitude to MMR, which some people claim may cause
autism and bowel
disease in children.
Mr Blair faced demands in the Commons on Wednesday to say
how he and
his wife Cherie chose to have their son inoculated, amid
suspicions at
Westminster that their reluctance to answer suggests they
have rejected MMR.
Most Ministers have taken their lead from Mr Blair and
refused to say
whether they are following government advice by giving
their children the
combined vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella.
But the “don’t tell” policy was under strain last
night after Dr
Gibson’s intervention. An academic biologist who also
chairs the all-party
cancer group at Westminster, he does not have a record as
a Labour troublemaker.
His call for ministerial honesty and leadership will be
embarrassing
for Mr Blair and Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary. The
Government has
promoted the merits of MMR and has warned that children
are being put at
risk because parents are listening to “scare stories” and
failing to inoculate them.
Downing Street’s refusal to confirm that 18-month-old Leo
had been
inoculated with MMR has led to speculation that Mrs Blair,
who has a keen
interest in alternative therapies, may have opted for
three separate jabs -
which can cost up to £300.
Dr Gibson told BBC radio’s Today programme that there was
a “difficult
dividing line” about the lives of public figures and their
families. Some
things should be kept private, he said. “But I think
people like their leaders to set an example.
“Whether the issue was nuclear power, mobile telephone
masts, or MMR.When the public are confused and not sure, and as an MP I get
questions about the safety of MMR, the question frankly is about risk.
“The public do understand about risk. There is risk
associated with
any kind of medical treatment. And people need to know
what the risk is. The
best criteria for seeing if it’s a risk is when leading
figures, be they
footballers or leading politicians, come clean.
“It’s a social thing, they are talking to the nation, they
are setting
a message.”
He was contradicted by George Kassianos, an immunisation
expert from
the Royal College of General Practitioners.
“Whatever we say and do is between the patient and the
family doctor
and it has to stay like that otherwise patients will lose
confidence in the
NHS,” he said.
Mr Blair set the tone for the Government on Wednesday when
he rejected
calls to say whether he and his wife have chosen MMR for
Leo. Mr Blair believes that he would be accused of using his children to
promote Government policy.
His aides fear a similar reaction to the one that greeted
John Gummer,
the Tory agriculture minister in the 1990s, who was
photographed feeding his
daughter a beefburger during the BSE crisis.
No scientific evidence has been produced to prove a link
between MMR
and autism. The vaccine is strongly backed by the Health
Department and the
World Health Organisation.
* * *
Health Minister Jacqui Smith refused to tell John Humphrys
if her children
had been given the MMR vaccine. Rod Liddle, editor of
Today, says she should
come clean
[In The Observer .]
If I were to ask you if your child had received the MMR
inoculation,
would you react with astonishment and outrage, claiming
the question was a
grotesque invasion of privacy?
My guess is you wouldn’t. My guess is you’d say ‘Yes,
he had it a
couple of months ago’ or maybe ‘Oh dear, we’ve really
agonised over this
and, having weighed up the pros and cons, decided against’.
Considerations
of privacy wouldn’t occur, would they?
Would you feel your child’s privacy had been compromised
if you were
asked the same question on a radio programme? Would you
say, in response,
with grave hauteur, ‘Sorry, this is a deeply private
matter which I am not
prepared to discuss’? Maybe you would. I suspect you
wouldn’t.
So why is the Government upset that we should ask this
question of a
Minister whose department was responsible for urging all
parents in the land
to have their children inoculated?
Because it is outraged, or affects to be so. Angry letters
were sent
to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and there was stuff in
the press about how
badly we’d behaved. There was even a suggestion Health
Secretary Alan Milburn would boycott Today.
Where is the privacy issue here? Are we meant to believe
ministerial
offspring would be injured by the revelation that they had
been inoculated?
That the non-inoculated contingent at pre-school play
group would pelt the
child with Plasticine? That the stigma of being inoculated
would lead to a
life of petty crime, anomie and mental illness?
No. The child would not even be conscious of the question
or its ramifications. This isn’t an issue about the privacy of ministerial offspring.
It’s an issue about the parents, the politicians.
There is a debate to be had about the extent to which a
Minister’s
private life is fair game for reportage and speculation.
At Today - and the
BBC in general - we’ve always been cautious about what we
believe is
legitimate public interest. Let me give you an example.
When Leo Blair was
born, we were not left in the dark about the little mite
for very long.
There were many photographs of him with the proud father.
There were
television interviews. There were the occasional
references to the baby in
political speeches. We were privileged to learn, for
instance, of little
Leo’s nightly bowel movements.
·
Article continues at:
http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,624228,00.html
* * *
[By Lorraine Fraser.]
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/23/nmmr2
3.xml&sSheet=/portal/2001/12/23/ixport.html
Tony Blair last night dropped a heavy hint that his baby
son Leo had
been given the controversial MMR vaccine, saying that it
was “offensive beyond belief” to suggest that he would advise others to have
the inoculation if he thought it too dangerous for his own child.
His intervention was made as The Telegraph discovered
evidence that
Downing Street’s refusal to say if Leo, aged 18 months,
had been treated has
undermined public confidence in the combined measles,
mumps and rubella vaccine.
Clinics offering alternatives to MMR told The Telegraph
that they had
been “flooded” with inquiries from anxious parents since
Mr and Mrs Blair
declined to answer questions on Leo.
One London-based company, Direct 2000, said that since the
controversy
began a fortnight ago the business had received 1,500 more
calls than it
would normally expect, an increase of 30 per cent.
All were from parents asking about separate measles mumps
and rubella
vaccinations. Worries about the vaccine followed claims,
rejected by the
Government, that it could cause autism and bowel disease
in children.
Mr Blair decided to issue a written statement after two
newspapers
reported that a relative of Cherie Blair suffers from
autism. He called the
reports a “horrible and unjustified” intrusion into the
family’s privacy.Crucial facts were wrong, he said, but could not be corrected
without further compromising the family’s privacy.
“The suggestion that the Government is advising parents to
have the
MMR jab while we are deliberately refraining from giving
our child the
treatment because we know it is dangerous is offensive
beyond belief,” he
said.
“For the record, Cherie and I both entirely support the
advice, as we
have consistently said. It is not true that we believe the
MMR vaccine to be
dangerous or believe that it is better to have separate
injections, as has
been maliciously suggested in the press, or believe that
it is linked to
autism.”
Mr Blair said that if he answered the question directly it
would set a
precedent and lead to his being questioned on whether his
family abided by
the recommendations made in 18 other Department of Health
campaigns, ranging
from encouraging breast-feeding to curbing alcohol abuse.
·
Article continues at:
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/23/nmmr2
3.xml&sSheet=/portal/2001/12/23/ixport.html
Lenny Schafer, Editor@feat.org •
CALENDAR EVENTS@feat.org Michelle Guppy
Catherine Johnson PhD
• Ron Sleith •
Kay Stammers • Edward Decelie
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