|
Reports deepen MMR dilemma
http://www.sundayherald.com/13151
Conservative MP Julie Kirkbride is faced with a
difficult dilemma. Her three- month-old son Angus will eventually be sent a
little card asking him to attend his local clinic for a vaccine to protect
him against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). As a politician, Kirkbride is
more than aware of claims of a link between the jab and autism and bowel
disorders. She has called for single vaccines to be made available and has
said that she will "think long and hard" before giving her son
the MMR.
The same dilemma is facing thousands of parents across the country.
Hundreds have already been driven to a private doctor in Edinburgh who has
managed to administer single vaccines by importing them from France. Others
look to the experts for advice and reassurance that the jab offered by
their local GP is safe.
But the conflicting opinions put forward by the medical profession are
leaving parents confused and scared. Some experts are adamant that the MMR
vaccine triggers autism and bowel disease in some children while others
insist there is no evidence of a link.
This month three new studies are fuelling the debate. One to be published
in the Journal of Adverse Drug Reactions next week says that MMR should
never have been licensed in the UK because insufficient tests were carried
out. Another, published in the December edition of the Pediatric Infectious
Disease Journal, but brought to the public's attention last week, says that
a survey of 1.8million Finnish children showed no evidence of a link
between the MMR vaccine and autism or bowel disease. And to make the confusion
complete, the same day as the Finnish study was brought to light another
study, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that one in eight
GPs and a quarter of practice nurses believe that there is a link between
the MMR vaccine and autism.
Government scientists immediately quoted the findings of the Finnish study
in a desperate bid to reassure parents of its safety amid fears of a
measles epidemic because parents have been rejecting the jab in droves.
Professor Brent Taylor is head of the department of paediatrics and child
health at the Royal Free and University College Medical School. He said the
Finnish study should reassure parents that the link suggested by his
colleague Dr Andrew Wakefield in a study in the Lancet journal in 1998 does
not exist.
He said: "This is a 17-year study with a 14-year follow-up and I hope
it does reassure parents. It overcomes all the criticism that this vaccine
was not tested for long enough. This was a very detailed study on a very
large number of children and supports the other work that has shown that
there are no serious side effects and that MMR does not cause autism and
inflammatory bowel disease. No one anywhere else in the world has been able
to reproduce any of Dr Wakefield's studies.
"Separate vaccines do not provide good protection for children.
Immunisation rates are picking up again and we do not want a new programme
that could result in serious diseases which kill and maim people. There is
no evidence that giving three vaccines separately is any safer than the
combination vaccine. Some families will not complete the course and
children will be left vulnerable to disease. If this is about choice what
about the children's choice? They will be subjected to six vaccines instead
of two."
But Wakefield would argue that his findings have been reproduced in further
studies since the theory was put forward in the Lancet. One such study was
published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
And those who believe the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella triggers
autism in some children argue that the latest paper does not address this
link. They say it is looking at acute adverse reactions and not the more
long-term development of complex conditions such as autism.
Dr Ken Aitken, a Scottish-based clinical neuropsychologist, said:
"This study is only looking at serious adverse reactions over a brief
period of time and not the period over which children regress to get
autism."
He points out that doctors were asked to look out for specific adverse
events such as death, allergic reactions, neurologic disorders and
miscellaneous syndromes such as diabetes or pneumonia but were not
specifically asked to look out for autism. He also points out that doctors
were told that the events were likely to be linked to the MMR if they
occurred within the first two to three weeks of inoculation. He says they
were not asked to look out for longer term conditions.
Dr Aitken added that, as other studies have shown that the levels of autism
are increasing in Finland, it is suspicious that not one case was
attributed to the MMR vaccine.
The summary of the conclusions of the Finnish paper did not actually
mention autism. It states: "Comprehensive analysis of the reported
adverse reactions established that serious events causally related to the
MMR vaccine are rare and greatly outweighed by the risks of natural MMR
diseases."
The results of the study are split into various types of adverse reactions
resulting from MMR. These are death, allergic events, neurologic disorders
and miscellaneous complaints such as pneumonia, flu and diabetes. Comment
about autism is however made in a discussion in the paper about the
results.
It states: "No case of inflammatory bowel disease or autism was
detected during this long follow-up study comprising three million vaccine
doses. This finding is important because were there an association with MMR
vaccination after such a short interval as suggested, this prospective
study design would undoubtedly have disclosed at least some cases."
Richard Miles from London is the father of an autistic boy and is convinced
his son's condition was triggered by the MMR vaccine. He is not reassured
by the latest study. He said: "It is extraordinary that in the first
four pages of the paper it doesn't even mention autism or Crohn's
disease."
Experts in the Wakefield camp argue that the study was not looking at
whether the MMR vaccine causes autism or not. They also point out that it
was dependent on doctors referring events to the authorities and not
looking to see what had happened to the children who had been inoculated.
They argue that this type of research - referred to as passive surveillance
- is only likely to pick up between 1% and 10% of cases.
David Thrower believes his son's autism is a result of receiving the triple
vaccine. He is not reassured by the study. He said: "The Finnish study
wasn't designed to study autism or bowel disease as an outcome. By quoting
this study the Department of Health is once again failing to recognise that
what we are looking at is a gradual degenerative syndrome, not an acute
adverse event. A study such as this will have comple tely missed gradual
degeneration.
"The publicity surrounding this paper was orchestrated to deflect
attention from the impending paper in the Journal of Adverse Drug Reactions
on how the long-term follow-up tests were never done."
Bill Welsh, from Glasgow, who believes his grandson's autism was triggered
by the MMR vaccine, added: "Confidence in MMR, and in the veracity of
officialdom's utterances, is sinking to an all time low. Parents are not
being fooled. It appears no proper long-term safety studies were carried
out on MMR vaccines. Such studies, if they had been included, would have
identified the insidious nature and symptoms of late-onset autism. The
autism epidemic sweeping the UK and USA correlates to the introduction of
this combined vaccine containing three live viruses. Those who seek to
defend MMR, regardless of the growing body of evidence pointing to its
serious side effects, have only themselves to blame for the loss of faith
in immunisation. The choice of single vaccines should be available to
parents as a right."
Last week a parliamentary debate on autism had to be extended for 19 MSPs
to tell of how autism had affected constituents in their area. Many raised
the controversy of the MMR vaccine and called for the reintroduction of
single vaccines in order to combat the worrying decline in the number of
parents immunising their children.
Conservative education spokesman Brian Montieth called for the
reintroduction of the MMR vaccine and his views were echoed by Scottish
Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan and many of the SNP members.
This week Conservative health spokesman Dr Liam Fox said the Conservatives
would reintroduce single-dose vaccines if they were re-elected if the
vaccination levels were still low.
"It must be better for children to have a single vaccine than to have
nothing at all," he said. "This is not an ideal situation but
must be infinitely preferable to the prospect of dead or damaged
children."
|
in
this section