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INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

 

“The Needle and the Damage Done”

Economist Online (www.economist.com) (02/14/02)

The British government has only itself to blame if the public does not trust what it says, an Economist editorial asserts.  In recent times, the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine has become controversial, primarily because of reported links to autism and bowel disease.  Numerous studies have failed to find any connection between autism and the MMR vaccine, but take-up of the vaccine is nevertheless falling, the editorial notes.  The decline in take-up is, in turn, being reflected in inverse proportion by a rise in cases of the measles.  In the United Kingdom, trust in government announcements has not recovered from the bovine spongiform encephalopathy scandal of over a decade ago, when authorities told people that there was nothing to worry about, only to be proven spectacularly wrong.  The government’s main objective right now should be to rebuild its scientific credibility, the editorial recommends, and it needs to ensure that all health service professionals are up to date with developments in the debate, so they can calm people’s fears.

 

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