http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=119243
The medical debate
Two doctors present the opposing sides of the
argument raging over the vaccine
Jonathan Thompson
10 February 2002
Internal links
Public
health warning on TV to push MMR
Cases of mumps
rise by 800 per cent in five years
Eye
witness: Dr Elliman and a bad outbreak of mistrust in Nappy Valley
Raising
Jamie hasn't been easy. But I wouldn't have him any other way
FOR: Dr Brent Taylor
The MMR vaccine does not cause or trigger autism.
It is just a coincidence that the symptoms of autism emerge at around the same
age as the vaccination, but there is no direct link. For parents, it's always
nice to have an external cause for autism, especially as it has a heavy genetic
element. It is a terrible condition and we do need to try harder to understand
the causes, but MMR is not one of them.
MMR has the safest profile of any vaccine used in
the world. We need the MMR uptake to be over 95 per cent for it to be fully
effective. At the moment it's not meeting this level and as a result there is a
danger of a measles epidemic. It's an extremely worrying situation.
I would strongly advise all parents to give their
children the MMR jab. It does not cause autism, regression or bowel problems.
* Dr Taylor is Professor of Community Child
Health at the Royal Free and University College Medical School, London. An
article of his on MMR is published in the 'British Medical Journal'.
AGAINST: Dr Peter Mansfield
I knew that MMR was a mistake from the start.
Within 10 seconds I could see that it was a bad idea.
All the vaccinations prior to MMR could occur in
nature; they had never been combined before. Normally, viruses can't infect at
the same time, so if you put more than one virus into a body at once you are
making a grave error. Surely the point of vaccination is to make it safer for
children, but with MMR a child could be overwhelmed, and might not recover.
The deaths and severe reactions to MMR are just the
tip of the iceberg. The Government should stop lying and recognise that MMR is
one step too far. It's all nonsense. It's all about greed, and the gullibility
of buyers at the Department of Health. These people are acting on behalf of the
nation and they should be more sceptical.
* Dr Mansfield continues to offer individual
vaccines at the Good HealthKeeping Centre in Louth, Lincolnshire. A GMC case
against his policy of providing the vaccines collapsed last year.
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