http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7334/383
BMJ 2002;324:383 ( 16 February )
News
Government launches intensive media campaign on MMR
Zosia Kmietowicz
The UK government is launching an intensive media and education campaign to
try to regain public confidence in the troubled measles, mumps, and
rubella vaccine and reverse the slump in uptake.
A full page advertisement in support of the MMR vaccine will appear in the
national press in the next few days. It will include a statement
from the chief medical officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, promoting
the combined triple vaccine as the only safe way to immunise
children effectively against measles, mumps, and rubella.
The message is endorsed by a host of medical bodies, including the Royal
College of General Practitioners, the Faculty for Public Health
Medicine, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the
BMA, and the Royal College of Nursing.
The newspaper blitz will be followed by a mailing to general practices of
information on the research at the centre of the latest controversy,
so that doctors and nurses can update the MMR packs sent out by the
Department of Health a few months ago.
According to Health Promotion England, which is organising the campaign,
parents with children who are due to get their jab may also receive
a personal letter explaining why experts regard the MMR vaccine as
the best and safest way to protect against measles, mumps, and rubella.
Last week Dr Andrew Wakefield, who first said in 1998 that there may be
a link between MMR, Crohn's disease, and autism (Lancet 1998;351:637-41[Medline]),
published new evidence to support his claim, although commentators
have said this still proves nothing (9 February, p315). The
research, which was highlighted in a television programme (Panorama,
BBC1, 3 February), has fuelled the media debate on the safety
of the triple vaccine.
Although the latest figures on uptake of the MMR vaccine are not available,
the proportion of eligible children being immunised fell from 92% in
1997 to 86% last October.
Many observers blame the way the government handled the bovine spongiform
encephalopathy crisis for the public's mistrust of information on
matters of public health. (See p 386.)
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