http://www.gn.apc.org/inquirer/jabs.html

This was my first article on this issue. I wrote it in April 1995 for Celia Hall, the medical editor of The Independent, a major UK newspaper.

1320 words (colour photos of the Fletcher family available)

JABBING THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

A group of parents who believe their children seriously damaged by the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) injection commenced a major legal battle this month when the Legal Aid Board granted them aid in their fight for full compensation. The Board made their decision on evidence researched and put forward by these parents in the name of about forty children.

It started when Robert, a bright one year old boy, living near Manchester, went with his mother, Jackie Fletcher, just over a year ago to have his MMR injection. She said; "The Health Sister came to talk about the vaccinations. I inquired about its safety and was reassured. She produced the Health Centre pamphlet that told how dreadful were the illnesses protected against and how minimal were the possible side effects - just a mild swelling, slight rash or fever." Her son was a healthy bouncing child and submitted to being jabbed with normal complaints.

Jackie told me; "Ten days later he started convulsing. We went by ambulance to hospital. When we suggested our son might be reacting to the vaccination, the doctor looked at us puzzled. He said the fit coming after the inoculation was purely a coincidence and would probably not reoccur. The consultant on the ward said much the same. However our child continued to have fit after fit. He was eventually diagnosed as epileptic as well as having a very rare acquired immunodeficiency problem."

Then at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Jackie met a mother whose child had a similar problem. This seemed to be an extraordinary coincidence - rather like two needles meeting in a haystack - for both had been told their child's sudden drastic ill health after the MMR injection was "rare and nothing to do with the injection". They decided to investigate. Jackie "contacted the local Community Health Council. Their chief officer agreed to place an item in the local paper to find if any other parents had a child suffer adverse reactions. Thirty parents responded. All believed their children seriously vaccine damaged."

Jackie, her husband John, and some of these parents, decided last Christmas to start a self-help group to investigate if their children were suffering from their MMR jabs. They called their group JABS - "Justice, Awareness and Basic Support." Accepting what the professionals told them, they decided JABS should campaign not to stop the jabs but for parents to be better informed and for proper compensation for vaccine damaged children .

JABS sent out questionnaires to all parents who contacted them. Within their local community they discovered all sorts of expertise. One neighbour had a computer modem, another was a biochemist. They accessed medical data banks and put out messages over computer networks - and people started to contact them from overseas.

They found out there were similar groups of parents in America, Australia, New Zealand, France - all of parents who said they had seriously vaccine damaged children. Medical experts contacted them from around the world. They collected medical evidence, papers from learned journals. They got in touch with authors of these papers.

In January they called a public meeting. One hundred and fifty came. If what Jackie had been told were true, that there were scarcely any serious side-effects of the MMR injection, then she clearly had an amazing talent for finding very rare cases.

When I met Jackie and John, and their son Robert, who never smiles now and has several fits a week, they gave me a list embodying the preliminary results of their survey of parents who contacted them. It gave details on about ninety children from every part of the British Isle. It was horrifying. It affected me as it had the Legal Aid Board. It listed children that had reacted to one of three different vaccines containing a combination of the weakened viruses of measles, mumps and rubella used here over the past 6 years.

Out of the 90 children on that list, 24 received a vaccine called Pluserix-MMR manufactured by SmithKline Beecham. It was withdrawn in the UK on the 14th September 1992 because of "reports of mild transient meningitis."

Of the children that received Pluserix-MMR on that list, 3 died (1 after meningitis) , 4 had meningitis symptoms, 5 epilepsy, 5 had become autistic, 1 suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, 1 had severe urticaria and 2 had mumps. 6 had their speech affected - forgetting language skills they had acquired, 1 went deaf. 6 from this time suffered from delayed development and 4 were very very disturbed. One of the deaths was from the Guillain-Barré syndrome - where antibodies are produced that attack the body's own cells . 7 or more suffered frequent fits or convulsions, 1 had terrible screaming fits.

Thirteen of the children on that list received Immravax made by the French company, Merieux UK Ltd. This was also withdrawn on the same date and for the same reason as Pluserix-MMR - because of "reports of mild transient meningitis.".

Of the children that received Immravax; 6 became epileptic, 1 nearly died from encephalitis, 3 had meningitis, 1 measles and 1 mumps, 5 had speech and communication problems, 3 became slow developers, 7 had frequent fits and convulsions, 2 went into the kind of terrible screaming fits that are associated with brain trauma.

Seven were known to have received MMR-2. This is manufactured by Merck in the USA and distributed in the UK by Wellcome. It is the one currently used in the U.K. A Department of Health spokesman said last week the risk of MMR-2 causing meningitis was so small as to be "unquantifiable" and there was no direct risk of epilepsy. Of the MMR-2 children; 2 had epilepsy, one meningitis, one became autistic and another a slow developer. 2 had speech defects. One lost muscle tone and became disabled. 4 had frequent fits or convulsions - one child for a five hours stretch. One had a "grand mal" seizure.

These are only the first results. JABS have had many other cases reported to them but they do not know in these which of these vaccines was administered and are inquiring from parents. One of these died from a viral swelling of the heart.

The Fletchers now question the advisability of injecting children simultaneously with so many viruses. She told me of James, a child found sitting in a lane after being inoculated with six viruses. "He did not recognize his parents and was fitting. He's part paralysed and has hundreds of fits a day. He's been yalloped! Yet his parents were turned down by the Vaccine Damage Payment Unit. All parents have to prove 80% vaccine damage in order to get anything. His parents have been struggling to get compensation for four years. " She concluded; "You take your healthy child along to be jabbed - and you are out on your own if your child is vaccine damaged. Even if you get £30,000 , the maximum payment, this is minimal for a permanently severely handicapped child." Despite these restrictions, some 600 have won state compensation since 1979 as severely damaged. Yet these severe cases are not mentioned in the official advice to parents on known risks.

The difficulties parents face in getting compensation contrasts with the treatment of doctors. They get £1,800 if 90% of the children under two are vaccinated. If only 70%, they get £600. Below this they get no bonus. The Fletchers believe these payments threaten the objectivity of medical decisions.

As they prepare for their court case, the JABS parents nurse their much loved and damaged children, continue to gather evidence of how commonly and severely the vaccines seem to damage children and to press for some compensation, for honest treatment of parents, and for reassessment of the MMR vaccination. In Britain this is one problem that cannot be covered up any longer.

The JABS list of damaged children must make it so.

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JABS can be contacted via:

Some medical resources - this list will be expanded later.

To leap back to the Vaccine Room

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.