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Autism Statistics: Facts and figures
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Posted by Sylvia on Sunday, November 16, 2003 (13:11:14)
The Guardian online, UK 01/11/2003
by James Meikle
When was the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine introduced?
1988. It is administered usually to children between 13 and 15 months old although the government measures the take-up by the age of two. A booster dose, intended to catch all those who missed it first time, is administered before starting school.
When was the possibility of a link of autism, inflammatory bowel disease and MMR raised?
1998, 10 years after MMR's arrival. Andrew Wakefield, then of the Royal Free hospital, London, lit the touchpaper for a five-year crisis of confidence in one of the medical establishment's most highly prized public health measures.
It did not help that cases of autism had apparently risen. The symptoms of the disorder, which causes behavioural and language problems, appear in children at the same age as the first MMR jab is given. An unhappy coincidence, said the Department of Health.
More recent research suggested that the apparent rise, which occurred through the 1980s before MMR was introduced and levelled off between 1992 and 1996, was, in fact, down to better and earlier diagnoses.
The vast majority of researchers have insisted there is no evidence of a link between MMR and autism, although there is continued interest in the idea that inflammation of the gut might be associated with autism.
Why are alternative single vaccines not available on the NHS?
The government - and a big majority of scientists - regards the multiple dose as less risky and more effective. It says that before MMR, when the single measles vaccine was used, there were regular epidemics and 10-20 deaths a year. Parents could ask for separate jabs at private clinics and demand for these soared as the media frenzy about the combined vaccine escalated.
Earlier this year parents of more than 1,000 children were advised to have the MMR because their single jabs given at clinics in Sheffield and Elstree, Hertfordshire, were not administered as per manufacturers' recommendations.
What have other parents done?
Many have opted not to get their children vaccinated but coverage was falling before the 1998 watershed. In early 1995, 92.5% of children under two were having the triple jab, still below the 95% that is deemed necessary for "herd immunity".
By the end of 1998, the figure had dipped well below 90%. The refusal of Tony Blair to say whether his son Leo had had the triple jab in 2002 had little apparent effect on a gradual decline in take-up, but from last mid-summer the drop in immunisation rates has been steep: down from over 84% to 79% to the end of last June .
The law courts have been increasingly involved too. The high court ordered two mothers of girls aged aged five and 10 to have them immunised with the MMR in response to pleas from their fathers. Then last month the Legal Services Commission withdrew further public funds from families of 1,000 children who claimed MMR could trigger autism.
Have diseases returned as the MMR crisis deepens?
The Health Protection Agency says there were 117 measles cases in 1997, a figure that was not exceeded until last year when there were 308, according to provisional figures. This will be higher still this year, 360 were reported to September 20. Measles is the most infectious of the three diseases and the results of low coverage are seen first in its figures.
In 1996 there were 94 cases of mumps, by 2000 there were 697. In the first six months of this year, there were 881. These are not thought to be do with declining MMR uptake, but the consequences of young adults catching the disease who were born before MMR introduced routinely.
For rubella, the figures are a lot different. From 2,759 in 1996, the figure fell to nine for the first half of this year. This is apparently because of a combination of catch-up campaigns among adolescent girls and adult women, and the MMR.
The rubella vaccine gets a better response from a single dose than the measles part of the vaccine so although inoculation is low, more people will be protected than against measles. It is also less infectious than measles.
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Posted by Sylvia on Sunday, November 16, 2003 (13:11:14) (18851 reads)
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