http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=53&si=683859&issue_id=6838

 

Side effects of vaccines

 

Sir As the measles vaccine debate rolls on, I think Dr Alan Smith has ignored the points raised in my letter and not even attempted to answer the questions asked. If that is the way he and his colleagues deal with questions raised by concerned parents, it is not surprising vaccine rates are dropping. The doctor is "astounded by my level of ignorance", which after all is the point here. No studies have been done examining the long term effects of vaccination on the immune system and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that there is a link with auto-immune disorders.

I dispute many of the assumptions made about the benefits of vaccination programmes over social programmes and the way facts are manipulated to suit a biomedical point of view. Dr Smith's letter is a case in point.

Giving Dr Smith the benefit of the doubt on his statistics, last week Eilish O'Regan reported death rates from measles as one in 1,000. Now, in just over a week, they appear to have doubled to one in 500! If this is true, then proponents of vaccinations need to explain why, in 1959 during one of the worst measles epidemics (51,000 cases), the British Medical Journal (not my ignorant self) reported that measles was "normally a mild infection" (I had measles in 1962).

To lay people it seems odd that despite all the advances in health care and living standards 40 years later parents are being told measles is a deadly disease. I repeat the question I asked in my letter. Either this claim is not true, or in recent years children's immune systems have been compromised, making measles as deadly as it was in the 1940s. Could vaccination programmes have affected natural immunity? This is the type of question parents want answered, not more propaganda from the pharmaceutical industry. Members of the public are not idiots, Dr Smith. I am not suggesting for a moment that doctors are intentionally damaging children, however they must re-evaluate their reductionist approach to health. In 1998 the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that 106,000 people die annually in hospital from the side effects of medications. It is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, dwarfing the number of deaths caused by road traffic accidents, Aids, alcohol, illicit drug use and murder. In addition, the study tallied 2,216,000 severe reactions causing permanent disability. These figures would suggest this problem is at epidemic proportions. The medical profession has much more than a measles epidemic to prevent.

Dr Richard Lanigan,

Clontarf Rd, Dublin

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.