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Children given the MMR vaccine
do not face an increased risk of autism. Those with autism are no more
likely to have had the MMR vaccination than anyone else. The rise in
diagnosed autism cases predated its introduction and the rise continued
even when vaccine uptake remained constant. These are the conclusions of
studies from around the world conducted by independent and reputable
medical researchers. On these findings the debate about the safety of the
MMR vaccine should be based. The rest is unsupported allegation, tragic but
unrepresentative anecdote and scaremongering.
Yet across the media and in Parliament science
is being pushed aside. The Government is being urged to prefer the musings
of concerned writers to the mass of carefully compiled evidence that the
concerns are groundless. Many parents, unsure which way to turn, are
concluding that it might be safer to leave their children unvaccinated or
to pay for them to be given single, separate vaccines for measles, mumps
and rubella.
Immunisation rates in this country are already
dangerously low, far below the World Health Organisation’s recommended
rate. Recent media coverage will doubtless drive it lower. The point may
arrive when the Government feels it has no alternative but to give in to
public pressure and allow the NHS to administer single vaccines, rather
than leave very large numbers unvaccinated. If this happens, those who have
orchestrated the campaign will ring their bells. They will be wrong.
Having a child injected with the single
vaccines involves six separate visits to the doctor. To make any sense of
the idea that such vaccines are preferable to a triple vaccine, a long gap
must be left between each injection. A large number of children will miss
vaccinations and remain vulnerable to disease for a longer period. Parents
of boys will often not bother with the rubella vaccine. The success of MMR
has been such that people have almost forgotten the diseases it protects
against.
Already, because many countries have poor
vaccination programmes, a million children die each year from measles.
The campaign for single vaccines will lead
directly to children in this country dying, to babies born with terrible
defects and infants left brain-damaged after measles or deaf after mumps.
Those who make these consequences more likely are not likely to be those
that suffer.
Some parents reply that they would rather take
some of these risks than risk autism. This would be understandable if that
were the choice they faced. The scien- tific work suggests that it is not.
Indeed, while there is overwhelming evidence that the MMR is safe, single
vaccines imported into this country have not been independently tested for
potency and toxicity.
In the years after the BSE disaster it is easy
to find an audience whenever doubt is cast on anything said by an expert.
It is also easy to find anecdotes or to draw wild conclusions from tiny
fragments of research. Modern medicine is necessarily based on the judgment
of experts and the careful interpretation of comprehensive studies. It has
its faults, but it has proved superior to trying to cure disease by using a
ducking stool to find witches.
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