| Product: |
MMR Vaccination - Is it a Friend or Foe? |
| Date: |
10/02/01 (201 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Protects against serious disease
Disadvantages: Is it safe?
I would describe myself as a rational, practical human being. There is no way I want my son to catch any of the diseases that MMR protects against, as it is well documented that these diseases can cause dreadful complications and can be fatal for children. If I was talking to anyone about this even up until the last couple of months, I would have said definitely have your child immunised with MMR.
However, I seem to lose all sense of rationality when it comes to my own child. That, and all the recent controversy over MMR has left me in a complete quandry, not knowing what to do for the best.
Until recently, I was in total agreement with the government. I have worked in the past with teenagers with severe autism and had contact with their parents. All the parents said they had noticed that their children were different from when they were first born: "in a world of their own" was the most common phrase used to describe these children. Because autism is a developmental disorder, the symptoms often don't become apparent, at least to people other than the parents until the child is older, often around the same time as the child would be immunised. This, so I thought explained why many people thought MMR was resposible.
However, since reading various articles and seeing some of the anecdotal evidence I am now more worried about this. A recent article on the subject in Private Eye concerned me the most. I know Private Eye is an anti-government publication but it raised some very valid points.
1. The Finnish study. Every eminent TV doctor (Dr Hilary Jones, Dr Chris Steele)has quoted this study as finding no link between MMR and autism. As it was a large study - over 1 million children, this is seen as fairly conclusive. However, the Finnish study didn't find a link because it wasn't actually looking for one. The study only looked for adverse reactions for a 3 week period after the vaccine, as autism can b
e quite a slow development it would be easy to miss at this stage.
2. The number of children with autism has increased in Britain, and also in America and Finland. Worryingly one figure from East Surrey found one in 69 boys had autism (autism is more prevalent in boys). Obviously this may also be down to better diagnosis, I know from my limited work with people with autism that it used to be notoriously difficult to obtain a correct diagnosis. However, there has been a rise in numbers of children with autism since the MMR introduction which I think is significant enough to warrant more research.
3. The government insists the vaccine is safe. The more they insist, the more suspicious I become. Private Eye draws comparisons with the BSE crisis, and suggests the government should learn from this, they were insisting beef was safe but now admit they were wrong. Could it be that the government does not want to research MMR incase they find there is a link with bowel disease and autism, as this would open the floodgates for people rightly seeking compensation.
My son is just 6 months old so I have some time to make my mind up. At the moment I am considering looking into the single vaccinations, the single measles one was available freely up until a couple of years ago, I see no reason at all why parents should not have this choice.
I am keeping a careful eye on the news to see whether Tony & Cherie Blair have baby Leo vaccinated with MMR, a worrying choice for them too I would imagine.
My final comment is that the £3million spent on advertising to convince us that this vaccine is safe would surely have been better spent on proper research into it. As I said, I want my son to be protected against these diseases, but I can't begin to imagine the guilt and heartbreak parents must feel if their child becomes autistic after a vaccination. Having worked in this area, albeit for a short period, I know only too well the implicatio
ns of this disorder.
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- 15/02/01 My fisrt daughter has had all her injections and lucky as been brilliant with them. My second daughter has had the standard ones at 2,3,4 mths and will have MMR too. I read not long ago that through the bad publicity MMr has, the health profession are expecting a Measles epidemic shorty. I too was worried like you, but I feel that the risk of the linkage between Autism is far smaller than the risk of contracting a potentially dangerous disease that could kill a child.If the MMR is left any later, a child could catch Measles, Mumps and German Measles at playschool or Nursery. The timing is critical. What ever you decide I wish you all the best...and by the way a very informative opinion. |
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- 14/02/01 If the government want to disprove the links between mmr and autism and crohns the simplest way would be to change the time of vaccination.
The main arguement against a link is that these two illnesses develop naturally at this time (also autism in particular often involve a child losing what speach and skills they have). If the vaccine where given a year later..still before the children start school, and new cases stopped being reported then the link could be disproven and noone would have to suffer the anxiety of whether choosing to immunise their child caused these often life changing diseases. |
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- 14/02/01 When my oldest son was due his MMR, many years ago, my G.P refused to give it, as, a child he had given the jab to once before had a bad reaction to it.You can imagine my anxiety.I decided to speak to numerous health visitors, nurses, doctors and help lines.The pros far outweighed the cons....I went ahead with the jab and also had my other three children vaccinated when the time came.I would say to anyone in such a predicament.....ask...ask anyone and everyone...but at the end of the day it is your decision. |
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