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x Health: MMR Vaccine: Five Years of Claims and Counterclaims x
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Health Posted by Sylvia on Saturday, February 21, 2004 (21:09:48)

Scotsman News 20/02/2004

By Tony Jones

Tonight’s revelation about Dr Andrew Wakefield is just another chapter in the long and controversial history of the MMR vaccination which first made headlines five years ago.

Over the intervening period there have been claims and counterclaims which have involved researchers, medical professionals and even focused on the personal life of Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In 1998 a study by doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in north London, raised fears about the common childhood vaccine after research suggested links with autism.

The research, published in the medical journal the Lancet, discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease which was linked to children with autism.

The study raised alarms because it suggested that children’s behaviour underwent drastic changes shortly after they received the single dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Dr Wakefield, the head of the research team, believed that the combination of the three virus strains may have overloaded the body’s immune system and caused the bowel disorder to develop.

He explained at the time that if the bowel was damaged at a critical period of brain growth certain gut derived chemicals could gain access to the brain where they could influence its growth and development.

Two months later another study, also published in the Lancet, refuted the claims.

Professor Heikki Peltola and colleagues from the Helsinki University Central Hospital based their study on a Finnish vaccination programme which saw three million MMR jabs given to children between 1982 and 1996.

The researchers concluded: “Over a decade’s effort to detect all severe adverse events associated with MMR vaccine could find no data supporting the hypothesis that it would cause pervasive developmental disorder or inflammatory bowel disease.”

Around a year later a further two studies concluded there was no casual link between MMR jabs and autism.

Researchers from the Royal Free and University College Medical School and the Public Health Laboratory Service investigated the history of 498 autistic children born in the North Thames area since 1979.

They found no increase in the prevalence of autism after the MMR jab was introduced and no difference in immunisation rates between autistic children and the general population.

A second study from a working party of experts set up by the Committee on Safety of Medicines examined records collected by lawyers alleging a link between MMR or measles/rubella (MR) vaccine and autism or Crohn’s disease, a bowel complaint.

The working party reviewed 92 cases of autism and 15 cases of Crohn’s disease. Parents filled in questionnaires and medical reports were obtained from the children’s GPs and specialists.

The experts concluded that the evidence “did not support the suggested causal associations or give cause for concern about the safety of MMR or MR vaccine”.

In late 2001 Mr Blair found himself embroiled in the controversy when parents’ groups and the Tories insisted he and his ministers state whether their children had been given the jab.

Mr Blair refused to explicitly say whether his young son Leo had been given the vaccine because it would have opened the floodgates for other issues relating to his children, he stated.

But a few months later he gave a strong indication that Leo had – or was due to have – the jab when he said: “I would not be asking people or saying to people we advise you to do this if I thought it was dangerous for my own child.”

Further research has not cleared up the apprehension surrounding the vaccination with one study contradicting another.

And the confusion has affected the number of children being immunised for MMR before their second birthday.

In a Commons written answer published in March 2003, junior health minister Hazel Blears said that 90.8% of children under two were immunised in 1997-98 but 84.1% had the MMR jab in 2001-02.

Last year a High Court judge ordered two girls aged four and 10 to undergo MMR vaccinations against the wishes of their mothers after their fathers asked the court to declare that their daughters should receive immunisation appropriate to their age.

In another development campaigners seeking justice for children believed to have been damaged by the vaccine were dealt a blow last October when their legal aid for a court battle with drug companies was withdrawn.

The cases of more than 1,000 children who developed medical problems after receiving the jab were due to be heard at the High Court this April.

But lawyers acting for the families lost an appeal against the decision by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to withdraw legal aid, meaning the cases would not go forward.

Funding has been provided to some of the children involved in the action for nearly 10 years in their battle for compensation.

But the LSC said medical research had not provided a conclusive link between the MMR vaccine and autism and there was no acceptance among the worldwide medical authorities that the jab caused the symptoms experienced by the children.

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x x Posted by Sylvia on Saturday, February 21, 2004 (21:09:48) (1414 reads) x x

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