Are you willing to take the risk? Either way? (MMR Vaccination - Is it a Friend or Foe?)

Member Name: aflynn

Product:	MMR Vaccination - Is it a Friend or Foe?
Date:	12/07/02 (4538 review reads)
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Advantages: MMR prevents measles

Disadvantages: is there a risk??

MMR - a triple vaccination given to children between the ages of 12-15 months. A booster is given at 3-5 years. The booster is given to ensure that full immunity is gained as the first injection can sometimes fail.

The MMR vaccination is given to prevent the child from contracting measles, mumps or rubella (German measles). The MMR vaccination is a live vaccine - this means that a small dose of the disease causing virus is injected into the child. The dose is small enough for the child to be able to fight the virus and build up resistance to it - therefore becoming immune. The vaccine is grown in egg and if your child is allergic to egg, you must inform your GP so that alternative arrangements can be made.

Before we look at the whys and wherefores about having the jab or not lets look at the diseases the vaccination is trying to prevent.

Measles

Measles is predominantly a childhood disease. It is caused by a virus and is highly infectious. The virus is spread by contact (hands, mouths) and the incubation period is 9-11 days. Symptoms start with runny nose, high temperature, and swollen or sore eyes. Some days later a rash breaks out starting on the head then covering most of the body. The rash can last up to 6 days. There are some serious complications with this disease:

1 in 6 children will have diarrhoea

1 in 20 will have an ear infection

1 in 25 will have chest infections or pneumonia

1 in 200 will have febrile convulsions brought on by the high temperature

1 in 1000 will get meningitis or encephalitis (water on the brain)

1 in 2500 to 5000 will DIE

1 in 8000 will have serious brain complications later in the year they caught measles.

There is no treatment for measles. A virus does not respond to antibiotics. The only way to ?treat? this disease is to prevent it with vaccination.


Mumps

Another viral disease which can affe
ct adults as well as children. Again it is infectious. Incubation period is similar to measles and symptoms include swollen saliva glands at the side of the face. This is the classic symptom but others include high temperature, temporary deafness, in adults males it can cause swollen testicles.

Again there is not treatment for this disease - only prevention by vaccination.

Rubella (German Measles)

This is a mild viral infection, which only becomes apparent at the onset of the rash. The rash is mild and covers the body. There can be swelling to glands but this is mild. Children and adults can catch German measles. The main reasoning behind eradicating this disease is the damage is causes to unborn babies.

If a pregnant woman is exposed to the rubella virus:

In the first 8 weeks 90% of all foetuses will form with multiple defects

Between 10 - 16 weeks up to 50% of all foetuses will have some defects.

I was vaccinated against Rubella when I was 14. It was routine then. Only girls received the vaccination - but it was found that boys contracting Rubella could still pass it on to women who had not been vaccinated. That's why it has been incorporated into the MMR vaccination - to eradicate the disease.

Okay, so after reading that little horror story its obvious isn?t it? MMR is the only way - no contest really.

Charlotte received her first vaccination in 1997 - long before the scares started. Out of the 20 odd children in her nursery class who were vaccinated not ONE had ANY symptoms. You wouldn?t have known that they had received it.

But in February1998 along came Dr Andrew Wakefield. He was conducting a study into bowel disorders. He studied some children and found traces of the measles virus in the bowel. He also linked the MMR jab to autism as these children were found to have behavioural changes after vaccination.

Once his findings were published in T
he Lancet all hell let loose.

In March 1998 the Government commissioned a panel of experts from the Medical Research Council to look at Dr Andrew Wakefield?s study. They decided to look at a group of children that were at the time diagnosed as autistic. These children had all been born after 1979 and were from the Northwest area of England. Of the 498 autistic children found, not one had showed symptoms of autism after the vaccination was given. There was no sudden onset of children being diagnosed as autistic within 2 months of the vaccination. They therefore concluded that there was no link between MMR and autism.

In April 1998 Finnish scientists had concluded a 14-year study into MMR and bowel disorders. 3 million children were included in this study. The ones showing signs diarrhoea after having the jab were traced to see if there was any long term effects.
Out of the three million children 31 developed problems - none of which lasted more than a week. There were no long-term affects.

In April 2000 Dr Andrew Wakefield presented research to the US Congress showing that out of 25 autistic children tested, 24 had traces of the measles virus in their bowels. The US Congress decided to investigate the findings, as there was growing concern in the US about the MMR jab. The US Congress decided that these finding could not be supported for the following reasons: The study by Dr Andrew Wakefield had not taken into account standard risk factors. The size of the study - 25 children - was too small to come to any conclusion and the group selection was biased towards the results of the study. The US Congress dismissed the research as flawed.

In January 2001 Dr Andrew Wakefield raises the MMR debate again. This time he claimed that the MMR vaccination was never tested properly The Department of Health rejected these claims.

In February 2001 The British Medical Journal publishes a statistical study, in which all chi
ldren in London with autism, were traced. The children's medical histories were studied to see if there was a trend into regressive autism being diagnosed after the MMR jab was received. Again no links were found.

In September 2001 a team from St Georges Hospital in London look at all the studies carried out concerning MMR and come to the conclusion that giving the triple vaccination is just as safe as single jabs. They can find no proof for Dr Andrew Wakefield's argument that the body is overloaded by receiving 3 viruses at once.

In December 2001 the General Medical Council publish a report on autism stating that it is more likely that the cause of the syndrome is genetic or environmental as apposed to the MMR jab.

Now from all the studies, all the reports, you would say that there is no link. End of story. But what about all those parents who have come forward stating their child has gone severely downhill since they had the jab. These people cannot be dismissed out of hand. A mother of one of these children phoned Radio 5 Live some days ago and explained that her child had been a normal bright boy until he had had the jab. Almost immediately afterwards he had become ill and since then had developed regressive autism. She demanded that the government commission a study to find the link. No disrespect to this poor woman but I tended to agree with the Doctor on the programme who stated that any study would be worthless to her unless it produced the results she wanted.

So what about the argument for the single jabs. Well for a start they are not licensed for use in this country. You can only get them on private prescription. Also there is still a big argument going on amongst the medical community as to the length of time needed between each one, to ensure that there is no risk to the child.

Let?s just look at it this way

In the Finnish study 3 million children were immunised. If they had not
received the jab and had gone on to contract measles:

500,000 would have got diarrhoea

150,000 would have had ear infections

120,000 would have had chest infections or pneumonia

15,000 would have had febrile convulsions
3000 would have got meningitis or encephalitis (water on the brain)

1200 children would have died


1200 children too many don?t you think??

So what do we do now? Dr Andrew Wakefield has got his opinions and he isn?t going to go away. He may of stumbled across something - he may not. But the fact remains that his study does not follow the procedures needed to prove a theory. He has not used a control group - why didn't he check to see if children without autism had the measles virus in their gut? The debate just rumbles on. If I were Mr Blair, I would commission a study on every child in this country. I would look at all those that had received the jab and what their medical history contained post jab. This study would take a few years and would cost a lot of money. But hey what's money when a child's life is at stake?

Finally (at last) to finish

Both my children have been vaccinated. There was never any doubt in my mind. Also my next door neighbour went to university with Alan Milburn?s (Secretary of Health) right hand man. When we asked him whether we should get Ciaran jabbed or not he replied: I wouldn?t be recommending that my Goddaughter here be immunised if I knew that there was a risk to her.

Inside information, for the jab

Enough said

Thanks for reading (phew!!)

Mel
xxx

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