Row over measles epidemic

ALLAN HALL In Coburg

TWO homeopathic doctors are being blamed by the German medical establishment for a measles epidemic that has struck a Bavarian town. Five hundred of the infected people are patients of the pair.

Dr Karl Fromme and Dr Wolfgang Hüttner believe that, most of the time, is better for a child to gain immunity from the disease by contracting it in the first place. It is a belief system that has alienated them from the more mainstream medical community but not from their patients.

As their paediatrician colleagues round on them the number of measles cases in Coburg has swollen to 800, with 35 children - the youngest being a baby just months old - being treated in hospital. The two doctors say they are being made "scapegoats" by an establishment which ignores the wishes of their patients.

Coburg is suffering its worst measles epidemic in nearly a decade earning it the unenviable title of European Measles Capital. If the infection rate continues to rise there are fears of deaths.

Last year worldwide, 750,000 people died from measles, most of them adults and, statistically, one patient in 2,000 dies from the disease.

The children lying sick in the town clinic are suffering from a plethora of lung, ear and throat infections but mercifully no brain problems: when measles attacks the brain it can prove fatal.

Experts in Coburg who condemned the advice of the two doctors say that adults they advised as children not to be vaccinated with the MMR vaccine are now among the sick.

In a country that is one of the world’s wealthiest, with a health service second to none and MMR jabs available for all, the Coburg experience is directly linked to a rejection of government efforts to inoculate all children.

Dr Helmut Weiss, head of the state Health Office in Coburg, said: "The frequency of measles in Coburg is a regional peculiarity due to a wide-spread belief in homeopathy among segments of the population. There are some strong-willed homeopathic doctors in town who argue against vaccination.

"Their stronghold is the Waldorf school, which actively encourages people not to have their children vaccinated. Now we have an epidemic."

But the doctors defended themselves yesterday. Dr Fromme, 48, and a father himself, is to take part in a TV debate today with a critic. He will be speaking against a backdrop of rising anger which includes calls for penalties for the advice he has given for the last 17 years in the town.

The Children and Youth Doctor Association in Bavaria puts the blame squarely at their door. It claims they have neglected their duty of caring for children "because they had argued against the guidelines of the German Vaccination Committee for years", the head of the association, Dr Waltraud Knipping, said.

"It is now a question of whether the state will take the necessary steps to penalise them. Certainly the state has a responsibility to remind them of their responsibilities to children."

Coburg’s five other paediatricians are furious at what they see as a cavalier attitude by the two doctors that has put the town of 44,000 on the map in a way it never wanted.

Dr Rudiger Mende, said: "It’s a big mistake for Coburg that these children were not vaccinated. And of course these doctors have taken advantage of the fact that there is no law that says they must be inoculated."

Dr Ulrich Schamberg, the chief children’s doctor at the local clinic, who is caring for the victims, said: "Certainly these doctors have done nothing legally wrong and their patients love them, but I for one must question the wisdom of their advice. We now have the parents of children who are sick too."

Dr Fromme defended himself, saying: "It is untrue to say that I have told all parents not to inoculate. It is true that I told parents it was their decision and that, in my view, I believe it is preferable for a child to get measles because that is the best immunity of all. However, if a child reaches puberty and has still not had measles ... then I do recommend the MMR jab.

"I think we are being made the victims of a media witch-hunt. I told parents before Christmas that when this epidemic started that there was a likelihood of their children getting measles and I was not inundated with a rush to inoculate.

"Now some parents are saying to me that I didn’t tell them that this might happen but that is simply not the case."