MMR scare doctor to get a slap.

[Sgt Badass]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5070670.stm

Tch! That'll teach 'im to be a bit more careful.

[Admin]

This should have been done years ago.

It's not just the case that he's caused the uptake of the MMR vaccine to drop and for the incidence of measels etc. to increase, it's also the guilt that parents of autistic children have suffered as a result of believing that their child's autism was caused by their decision to allow their child to receive the vaccine.

There is no doubt whatsoever that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism yet the vaccine is still routinely reported as being 'controversial' by the media. >:(

[Jessie]

I can speak from personal experience on this one ....

Mr Wakefield made a right mess of the whole thing and the media thought it an incredibly juicy subject. Unfortunately the Government's handling of the whole affair was also a complete and utter shambles.

Yes, Mr Wakefield may be brought to task now - but at what cost to children and parents caught up in the whole process at the height of the controversy. Because of him, a lot of parents will still question the MMR vaccine because now (like then) they will not know who or what to believe.

[Admin]

There's a wealth of information on Bandolier: http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/booths/vaccine.html

Because of the controversy, the MMR vaccine is particularly well researched and it's safe to say that the autism-MMR link does not exist.

You're right Jessie, people do not really know who to believe. There's so much misinformation in the media even today. A look at a site like Bandolier is a far better way of assessing the issue than reading the Daily Mail however. It's a shame that people are so ready to believe what's in a paper. :-\

[Jessie]

I can vouch for that... I read the information in the Bandolier and it was excellent. Very informative and thorough and above all, correct.

I too find it incredible what people will believe when they read the papers :-\ :-\

[Sgt Badass]

Ben Goldacre made a good point this week about publication bias. I was stunned when I read the full (alleged) horror of the Wakefield debacle, obviously biased (funded by angry lawyers).

It all needs a good shake up from what I can see.

[Jessie]

The trouble is what the general public and mainly parents read.....

A parent will do whatever it takes to protect their children. If there is the slightest hint of a problem with a vaccine, it will be action first - research later :-\ :-\ by which time it could be too late. The seed of doubt has been sown.

[Admin]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5081286.stm

Measels cases are rising and the MMR scare is being blamed for the low uptake of the vaccination.

The actually numbers are still low in absolute terms but with so many children who are not vaccinated there is the potential for a larger outbreak.

I think the uptake of the MMR vaccine is around 73% whereas an uptake of 95% is needed for herd immunity to protect those who can't be vaccinated for other reasons.

[doubting thomas]

I seem to remember as a child that nobody got vaccinated against some of these childhood diseases.

We became infected through contact with other kids, had a bit of time off school to get better and returned as good as ever.

Yes, there were undoubtedly a few unfortunate cases who suffered more than most and even a very few fatalities.

There are some experts who now think that having these diseases even helps to strengthen our immunities as a whole.

[tkingdoll]

I seem to remember as a child that nobody got vaccinated against some of these childhood diseases.

We became infected through contact with other kids, had a bit of time off school to get better and returned as good as ever.

Yes, there were undoubtedly a few unfortunate cases who suffered more than most and even a very few fatalities.

There are some experts who now think that having these diseases even helps to strengthen our immunities as a whole.




Are you serious? I shall assume so and proceed.

Which childhood diseases are you referring to? Measles? Mumps? Rubella?

Those diseases kill, blind, main, disable.

Polio, perhaps? When you were a kid, I'm sure you saw lots of other kids with calipers on their legs. And now you don't. Why do you think that is?

[median]

I seem to remember as a child that nobody got vaccinated against some of these childhood diseases.

We became infected through contact with other kids, had a bit of time off school to get better and returned as good as ever.


I too remember this but I suppose it's a case of being lucky in life's lottery. ???

I suppose it's a bit like someones grandad who's smoked all his life and lived to a ripe old age. Selective information.
Obviously in the bad old days one wonders what the mortality rates were in comparison to the morbidity figures but what price to you put on a human life?

[Mojo]

I seem to remember as a child that nobody got vaccinated against some of these childhood diseases.

We became infected through contact with other kids, had a bit of time off school to get better and returned as good as ever.

Or as in my case, a lot of time off school feeling really ill and causing major anxiety to my parents.

I remember an article in the Independent recently (i.e. sometime over the last couple of years) about German anti-vaxers, one of whom wanted her kids to get these diseases because, she said, she had "good memories" of her childhood illnesses. Measles is not fun, and looking back at illnesses through the rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia does not make them fun.

[Admin]

There are some experts who now think that having these diseases even helps to strengthen our immunities as a whole.

That is undoubtedly true. Once the immune system has fought of an infection it remembers what to do the next time it encounters it.

The trouble is that actually catching the disease can cause a lot of serious damage and even death.

The idea of vaccination is to mimic the effects of infectious diseases so that our immune system is boosted by it, whilst removing the risk of a real infection. Then when the real infection is encountered, the body can fight it off as the immune system was strengthened by the vaccine.

That is why vaccines are so beneficial.

I'm afraid that the argument that vaccines compromise the immune system is a load of crap. It's one of the flawed arguments used by the anti-vax brigade.

[Nettles]

I took my younger daughter for her MMR the other day, and because of that mendacious creature Wakefield I (who know there's nothing wrong with the vaccine) felt an unpleasant shadow of doubt. Was I forever destroying the life of my daughter?

Of course I wasn't. But I can hate Wakefield for making me doubt.



I too remember this but I suppose it's a case of being lucky in life's lottery. ???


According to the flyer posted in my daughter's nursery between 1/2000 and 1/3200 cases of measles is fatal. In the developing world, mortality from measles runs at 1/10. In some Western metropolitan areas like Philadelphia when Christian fundamentalists were opposing vaccination in 1991 mortality ran at 1/100. The US national mortality rate for measles in 1991 was 1/300 (the US statistics from the NY Times). According to 1995 statistics from the US CDC 1/20 children who get measles will also get pneumonia. 1/1000 children who get measles get encephalitis and 1 or 2/1000 die. According to the WHO there are on average 50 deaths from measles every hour. Survivors who get encephalitis can be blinded or have brain damage. Not to put too fine a point on it, we're not talking about sniffles here.

Mumps can cause meningitis. And don't even get me started on what Rubella can do to foetuses.

Lots of older people aren't vaccinated against these diseases, and would be sitting ducks in an epidemic.

Life's lottery kills kids. Vaccination makes their deaths less likely. Parents who prefer to play the lottery don't just threaten their own children with a c.1/2000 chance of death, they threaten everyone else's children because they compromise herd immunity.

The national lottery odds run in the millions. By comparison, death by measles is a dead cert.

[Admin]

I can understand how you felt Nettles. Even though I'm a Skeptic who's looked into MMR-Autism in some detail and I'm 100% convinced that there is no link between the two, I'm sure that I'd have a twinge of doubt with my child.

I would always go for vaccination though.

There's a great Telegraph article on the issue here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2006/07/03/hmmr03.xml&sSheet=/health/2006/07/03/ixhmain.html).