<../vaccines/informed.html>The Informed Parent March
2001
Transcript of a Channel 4 news broadcast.
31/1/01, presented by Ian Williams in Osaka, Japan.
Scene opens with a film of parents and their child looking
at a photograph album.
Ian W: “The reality of their terrible loss emerges. They
had a son and when he was 21 months old they took him for an MMR vaccination.
(Close up of photo of unconscious infant with naso-gastric tube in situ). Two
days later he was in a coma from which he never recovered. That was eight years
ago and still the family is fighting for proper compensation from the Japanese government.”
Kayoka Kinoshita (mother): “We are the victims, not only
of that vaccine, but of a failure to make proper information about possible
side-effects available to us. It fills me with resentment and anger.” Shot of
nursery school. Children being served with food and eating lunch.
Ian W: “Nursery schools used to help organise mass
vaccinations and for 4 years, from 1989, MMR was recommended by the authorities
until, that is, the evidence of side-effects could no longer be ignored. More
than anybody else it was Shunsuke Fuji who battled to extract and then publish information
from Japan_s secretive and high-handed bureaucrats”.
Shot of book-lined, untidy office in the Osaka Inoculation
Information Centre where a telephone is ringing. Shunsuke Fuji walks in and
picks up the telephone, listens, then says:
“If your child_s already two, even catching measles
wouldn_t be so serious, so why bother with an inoculation?”
Ian W: “The authorities eventually admitted that more than
1000 people suffered side-effects from MMR, mostly meningitis. Three died
before the drug was withdrawn in 1993”. Shunsuke Fuji: “They began using MMR in
April 1989 and by July doctors were already warning of side-effects, but the government
didn_t take any notice because it was not convenient for them. They kept using it for another 3 years,
securing the profits for the manufacturers”.
Shot of childrens_ playground and children playing.
Ian W: “The problem was pinned on the mumps component of the
inoculation
which was changed and which is not used in Britain. But the
damage had been
done by the vaccine and by the government_s sloppy response.
Parents no
longer trust any MMR so doctors in Japan now give a
separate measles inoculation to children between the ages of one and six years
old. It is given as a single shot: no boosters are necessary. They do accept
that Japan_s rate of measles is high - 4,500 cases and 69 deaths between 1994 and
1998, but doctors here claim it was high even when MMR was used and they
strongly reject British criticism of the single vaccine”. Shot of clinic at
Osaka Red Cross Hospital with Dr Hidebeko Yamomoto drawing up a syringe of dear
liquid.
Dr Yamamoto: “The reason there are more measles cases here
compared with other countries is not that we use the single measles inoculation
but because we only give it after the child is one year old. That is the problem.
The measles cases usually originate in children in under one year and spreads
from them, so we should really think about giving the jabs earlier”.
Change of scene to childrens_ playground. Little girl on
swing being pushed by father.
Ian W: “Not only has Japan abandoned MMR in favour of the
single measles shot, but this has had a wider impact. Such is public
disillusion with what_s seen as dishonest, bungling bureaucrats that it has
undermined public confidence in vaccination.
When Mayu (close up of little girl on swing) was born six
years ago, her parents were wary of all vaccines. They insisted on an allergy
test before a measles jab. This proved positive. A full inoculation might of
killed their daughter. Last year, though, Mayu contracted a serious dose of measles.
Thankfully, she fully recovered. Her parents_ opinions have hardened: like a
growing number of Japanese they would rather risk illness than vaccines”.
Tomoko Kitakata (Mayu_s mother): “I have a distrust and
fear about putting dangerous things into the body. I also doubt whether the
answers from the government are true - or even from doctors - because they all
say something different. We have to make our own choice”.
Ian W: “Like everywhere, the overwhelming concern of
parents here is the health of their children. But Japan_s experience with
vaccines and the response of the authorities has hardly inspired confidence”.
Editor: This transcript was put together by a TIP subscriber
and sent in.
Many thanks.
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