A Doctor Writes - The Evidence (MMR Vaccination - Is it a Friend or Foe?)

Member Name: chrispitts

Product:	MMR Vaccination - Is it a Friend or Foe?
Date:	16/07/02 (542 review reads)
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Advantages: Free on NHS, 3 vaccines in 1 jab, Protects your children

Disadvantages: Media-fed fear

Right, I now feel ready to tackle one of the most controversial topics on DooYoo - the MMR or "triple" vaccine. As you will all know, we are in the middle of a media frenzy about the safety of the MMR vaccine, and possible links to autism and inflammatory bowel disease.

As a doctor, our profession in general feel as though we are looked upon as messengers for a corrupt and "cover-up" government. I can see why people think that. But I've read the research papers myself, and I like to think I can form my own opinion. So I'd like to share it with you...

Many of you will remember having measles and/or mumps as children. I do. And hey, it wasn't all that bad, was it? Felt a bit poorly, got better. Natural immunisation. Why bother with injections at all?

The problem is, the risks associated with all 3 diseases - measles, mumps and rubella are very high, which is why a global immunisation policy came into being.

Measles, a viral illness producing fever and a characteristic rash, can cause pneumonia, severe dehydrating diarrhoea, encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), fits, and, potentially, death.
1 in 15 children who contract measles develop complications related to the disease. 1 in 70 are admitted to hospital as a result, between 1 in 2500 and 1 in 5000 die from the disease, and 1 in 8000 develop the very scary and inevitably fatal subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, in which the child dies several years following infection.

Mumps is again viral. It causes sore throat, fever, and swelling of the salivary glands. It is related to viral meningitis, which can cause permanent deafness. It can also, more rarely, cause pancreatitis and swelling of the ovaries or testes. There has been a suggestion that this can lead to infertility, although there is no firm evidence to support this. Before vaccination began in 1988, there were around 1,200 admissions to hospital per year.

Rubella is
a bit different. Generally, the risks to someone infected are fairly low, but it is a big cause of congenital abnormalities if a carrier comes into contact with someone who is pregnant.


The MMR vaccine came to the UK in 1988, and since it was introduced, the number of cases of measles, mumps and rubella has dropped to almost nothing.
National vaccination was promoted by a "target payment" made to GPs if they managed to vaccinate a high percentage of the children on their lists. This did, on rare occasions, lead to some families being removed from a doctor's list for refusing to have the MMR vaccine! I understand many parents feel GPs only support the vaccine for financial reasons, but the Government have now frozen the "target payments" for MMR, so we're no better off however many children we vaccinate.

So what's with the crisis then? It seems like vaccination is a good idea, doesn't it? Stops these nasty diseases? Where's the controversy?

In 1998, Dr Andrew Wakefield and his team at the Royal Free Hospital in London published a paper in The Lancet, a well-respected Medical Journal.
In this paper, Dr Wakefield suggested a link between the Measles vaccine with autism and inflammatory bowel disease. He went on to suggest that 3 single vaccines would be safer than the triple, a belief that was not supported by any other member of his research team. Since then, he has claimed not to have found a definate link, but instead suggested a possible link.

Obviously, following the publication of this paper, the Medical profession panicked a bit, and loads of research papers were published. My personal favourite was a study done in London, analysing cases of autism from 1978 to the present day in North London. There was no increase in the number of children with autism after introduction of the MMR vaccine as compared with before.

No single study to date has found conclusive evid
ence for a link between the triple vaccine and autism or inflammatory bowel disease. A few have suggested a link with the measles virus (both by contracting the disease and by vaccination), but even this evidence is not conclusive. The vast majority of papers published on the MMR vaccine show NO EVIDENCE OF A LINK. And that's not Government Spindoctoring - it's true - I've read them (well, most of them!)

Last week, I had a chat to a consultant paediatrician for his opinion. He strongly felt the evidence against MMR was shaky. He also stated that the only possible link he could see was between the measles virus as contracted from the disease, and inflammatory bowel disease.
So how did he explain the apparent increase in autism. He said that in his experience, there wasn't a particular increase in true autism, but that children were being more broadly classified with "autistic-spectrum disorder", in which they show some behaviour associated with autism, but not all.

So is single vaccination safer than triple?

As I previously mentioned, this was first suggested by Dr Wakefield, and was then jumped on by a couple of MPs (notably the MP for Bromsgrove). The medical profession generally are at a loss to figure out why people believe single vaccinations to be safer - after all, the only links have been with the measles component - surely it doesn't matter whether it's given with anything else or not?!

Having seen a GP advocating the single vaccine route on GMTV a couple of weeks ago, I again asked the paediatrician - why do some GPs support the single vaccine. The answer is frighteningly simple - MONEY. At around £80-£100 per vaccine, single vaccines are a huge money-spinner for a GP Practice. It is worth noting that no country in the world supports single vaccination over triple.

Another concern I have heard is the fear of "overloading" the child's poorly developed immune s
ystem with 3 vaccines at once. This, I guess, may have come from "Gulf War Syndrome" in which soldiers became unwell following numerous vaccinations. But the child's immune system is well placed to deal with the MMR vaccine. After all, they have multiple vaccinations earlier in life with no complications at all.

And I think that's all I've got to say. I know I'll get nasty comments from people thinking I'm just reproducing the government spin, but I hope readers will give me a bit more credit - I can think for myself - and, in all honesty, if I don't believe something, I won't advocate it. As to my daughter... she had the MMR vaccination 2 weeks ago, and has a slight "vaccine rash". It was never an option. After all, if she develops measles, there's a 1 in 2500 chance she might die. No-one has died from the vaccine.

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