http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7346/1118/a
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Public Health Drugs:
immunological products and vaccines |
Susan Mayor London
A researcher who chaired the committee that introduced the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination programme into the United Kingdom has said that offering the choice of single vaccines could end the stalemate whereby some parents are refusing to have their children vaccinated.
Dr Eileen Rubery, senior research associate at the Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge, chaired the committee that introduced MMR vaccination to the United Kingdom in 1994, when she was under secretary for the protection of health with the Department of Health.
Writing recently in the British Association’s journal Science and Public Affairs (April 2002), she expressed concern that the government’s policy of insisting that children should have access only to the combined MMR vaccine was not helping to solve the current crisis in the programme.
Some parents refused to allow their children to have MMR vaccination, after reports that the combined vaccine might be associated with increased risk of several disorders, including autism. The medical community argued that the research was flawed and showed no direct association between MMR and autism, and so urged that the triple vaccination should continue and that single vaccines should not be available on the NHS.
However, some parents were not reassured by this advice. Latest figures show that 86% of 2 year olds have received the MMR vaccine, compared with 97% who received tetanus inoculation.
Dr Rubery said that offering parents the choice of single vaccines—at their own expense—could solve the problem, even though she considered there was no evidence of an association between MMR and autism and acknowledged that the single vaccines had not been tested in the same way as the combined vaccine.
"My guess is that once parents can choose, many will reflect more calmly on the options and understand the benefits of the triple vaccine," she said. "Just telling people that MMR is safe is not working, so the Department of Health needs to look again at how to improve uptake of vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella."
She based her suggestion on her experience in advising the Food Standards
Agency on how to deal with public concerns about possible links between BSE and
sheep, advice that was based on widespread and open consultation. "This is not
rocket science—it is applying standard psychology of giving people a choice,"
she concluded.
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Collections under
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Public Health Drugs:
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