mmr
I’ve been following what Anthony Cox has to say about MMR; in part because my oldest had his in the middle of the claims that it could lead to autism and his was a reassuring and knowledgeable voice in helping us make the decision to have him and later his brother vacinated.
In South East London making that decision is particularly important.The Health Protection Agency’s review of South East London for 2005 has this to say:
The low uptake of MMR has resulted in an increase in the numbers of susceptible children in the population and a re-emergence of measles. In 2002 and in 2003, significant measles outbreaks occurred in South East London.
They say that uptake was 64% in 2005 - which is 26% lower than the 90% of the population that need to have been given the vaccine to get herd immunity.
The NHS immunisation website has this from April this year:
There have recently been outbreaks of measles in north-west England and London resulting in the death of one 13-year-old boy. This is the first death from measles since 1992.
While the HPA’s report tells me:
There has also been an outbreak of mumps locally, part of a wider national outbreak, with over 1,300 cases reported in South East London from September 2004 to December 2005. Most cases were aged between 15 and 24. This group is vulnerable as most have not had the opportunity to have a full course of two doses of MMR vaccine.
The NHS hasn’t been idle, they’ve been running the MMR Capital Catch Up campaign but as the map of London on the right shows (in case it isn’t clear the lighter the colour the better) there remains a considerable gap between where we are and the targets that the World Health Organisation have for vaccination coverage.
WHO’s website says:
In 2002, there were an estimated 610 000 deaths due to measles worldwide, 540 000 of them in children under the age of five, representing 30-40% of the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases in childhood.
As is depressingly obvious most of those deaths took place in developing countries, but it seems like we parents in South East London might want to think about whether we really want to help drive those figures up.
Update - Victoria Lambert, the Health Editor of the Daily Telegraph, raises an interesting point about the way that politics slipped into the reporting of MMR:
One of the most astonishing stories came in 2001 when, following an intense campaign by the Department of Health to promote the vaccine, Tony Blair was put on the spot over whether his then-toddler son Leo had received it. When he refused to confirm or deny it, citing family privacy, we journalists had a field day. If the Prime Minister was not prepared to lead from the front, we cried (and, I think it is fair to say, nothing short of seeing Leo inoculated live on television would have been good enough*), how could the public trust the injection ever again?
* my emphasis.
Filed under: South East London
all the stories i hear about mmr get me confused, so many people cant agree on if its safe or not. i have four children. the first three had it two of them show signs of autism (there is a 16 month waiting list for the clinic, so they havent been diagnosed.) my fourth has not yet had mmr. my husband was very against having it till he saw a child that nearly died. i on the other hand wasnt worried to start with as i had measles and it wasnt nice but i dealt with it. i dont know if the problems my children have are linked to the mmr or bad living conditions or some other factor. i dont feel any one can make a true judgement yet.
Almost all (and all of the mainstream) medical opinion has come down on the side of MMR not being linked to autism. It seems only Dr Wakefield feels there is a link and no one has been able to replicate his findings.
That said I’ve met a number of parents with autistic children and like you they’ve all had to struggle to get the appropriate services for their children.
And as you say the causes of autism are still in the realms of theory rather than certain knowledge.
hello. i was just wondering if you were able to find out anything about why the bcg vaccines were stopped being given in secondary schools or any other info about tb, like recent stats. my son said there was someone in his class with tb, i didnt believe him until i got a letter from the school saying it was true.
Looks like things changed in 2005. Patient UK say:
i just felt the need to write here.i have 3 children one is 12 one is 7 the other is 4.all have had the vaccinations and now my 7 year old son is questioned marked on if he has autisim or ADHD he is still having assesments done on him to see what exactly is wrong with him.i would just like to say that if my son does have autisim i will not turn round and say thats because he has his injections i will say thats life and it doesnt mean it was caused by the injection it could just be bad luck and hes been unlucky to get it.if i ever had another child i would vaccinate that one to i believe in the vaccinations and believe all children should have them.who are we as parents to but our childrens lifes at risk and decide if we are vaccinating them or not?.this really does annoy me this subject and i just wanted to get my point of view across thank-you.
Chrissie, thanks for taking the time to leave your message. I hope that you get the support you and your family need, whatever the outcome of the assessment your son is going through.
[...] Protection Unit Posted in South East London by Andrew Brown on March 6th, 2008 I’ve written before about MMR and how we live in an area which is not well protected against the diseases that the vaccine is [...]