MMR jab?

[P J]

Where the Gov failed imo, was when the scare started about MMR, they should have reverted to the old single vaccines, whilst the science was investigated. Seem to remember Tory Bliar refusing to say whether Leo was having the MMR jab! Anyway, we now seem to have an unprotected generation.

 

• Single vaccines are less safe than MMR because they leave children vulnerable to disease for longer.

With single vaccines, children would need six separate injections. This would involve three "primary" doses, one of measles, one mumps and one rubella, followed by three separate pre-school boosters. The gaps needed between the vaccines are unknown because the theory is not based upon any evidence at all. This would leave the child vulnerable to dangerous diseases for longer: After the first injection, the child still has no immunity to the other two diseases against which they are unvaccinated. This is less safe than with MMR, where most children are given good protection by a single dose given at about 12-15 months and protection is virtually complete by dose two, given as a pre-school booster is given to catch any children in whom the first dose did not stimulate a full immune response.

Delaying immunisations by splitting them in this way therefore has a similar effect to reducing the proportion of children immunised. More children are unprotected, increasing the risk to themselves and to other children.

• All the evidence suggests that uptake is in fact poorer with single vaccines than with the MMR, and so with single vaccines fewer children would be protected. With six injections it is very likely that many children would not complete the course and therefore, to suggest that giving six injections rather than two will improve uptake is incorrect.

Giving MMR separately as six injections instead of two would increase the discomfort for children three fold, since each injection can be uncomfortable and the act of immunisation is sometimes distressing for children.

Some people argue that making single vaccines available would improve uptake because parents who refuse the MMR would take the single vaccines. In fact, the evidence from the UK and elsewhere is that the opposite is true. One of the most striking features of the replacement of single measles vaccine with MMR in 1988 in this country is the significant improvement in vaccination uptake which followed.

• Single vaccines imported into this country have not been independently tested for potency and toxicity - we have evidence that some of the single vaccines are less effective or less safe than MMR.

Unlike MMR, where the evidence shows no link, no study has been conducted to look at single vaccines and either autism or bowel disease. In fact, there is no reason to think that single vaccines would be any less likely to cause autism or bowel disease than MMR.

Parents are asking for these vaccines because they are scared by all the unfounded stories they have heard and read about MMR, not because there is any evidence that single vaccines are any safer.

If children do not have protection against all three of these diseases, we run the risk of the resurgence of the infections. This means not just measles outbreaks, but, for example, the return of babies born with terrible defects as a result of congenital rubella syndrome, or of children becoming deaf following mumps.

No country in the world recommends vaccination with the three separate vaccines - the UK is unique in this scare story. Some single vaccines are available in other European countries, where they may be used rarely in special circumstances (for example in France measles vaccine is used for children aged 9 to 12 months attending nursery schools. These children usually go on to have MMR six months later

 

 

 

sorry its a bit long winded.

[Lt Kije]

And just where do you get your information regarding the reading and voting preferences of forum members Lt Know it all? You have proved time after time to have mis-pigeonholed members, and you certainly don't have the foggiest idea about me!

 

You have always been an open book Asp!

 

Obs your still avoiding, and employing your usual tactic of hiding behind others

[observer]

PJ, all very informative, but what were being used prior to the introduction of MMR? Albeit less than satisfactory, it would have been preferable to not being vaccinated at all, due to the temporary scare. (ignores Kije twittering on about nowt !)

[P J]

The mmr jab was available Obs, my own daughter received it during the unfounded media scare . Not everyone believes all the crap that newspapers present as facts

[observer]

I know the MMR jab was available PJ; trouble was , many folk didn't trust in it, due to the scare - thus for those folk, the only alternative would have been the single dose - but that doesn't appear to have been an option, not on the NHS at any rate.

[P J]

The single dose was also available Obs

[observer]

Fair enough, in which case (if it was available as an alternative), those parents of unprotected kids (many now in their teens) have only themselves to blame.

[P J]

Fair enough, in which case (if it was available as an alternative), those parents of unprotected kids (many now in their teens) have only themselves to blame.

I concur.

[asperity]

By what they post or posted in the past. Your now going to tell me your Tony Blairs number one fan, and all the negative posts you put up about him were a smoke screen, and your just biding your time waiting for his call to rise again.

I think you should change your medication, its affecting your powers of reasoning.

[asperity]

You have always been an open book Asp!

You know absolutely nothing about me and the more you claim to know the more deluded you appear.

[Lt Kije]

If that makes you feel better Asp, you believe it

[asperity]

You are definitely deluded Lt Kije. Just because someone doesn't agree with your point of view doesn't make them a Tory voting Mail reading religious fundamentalist. Get over yourself.

[Lt Kije]

Religious fundamentalist, your defiantly not one of those Asp.