It is said that articles should not be written in the first person. Tosh! I have read so much on MMR and measles during the past year that I have to say something before I scream! I think there is an awful lot of uninformed comment being given air time and newspaper space these days, and there is a danger of ‘untruths’ being believed as fact due to most people seeming to believe anything they see or read in the media.

Here is a brief rundown on three specific items I read during the week in which I am writing this; one was on the subject of measles parties. I shudder at people’s ignorance on this matter.

I have two comments to make on what could be construed as attempted manslaughter:

• If deliberately infecting someone with AIDS or HIV is illegal, what is so different about deliberately infecting a child with measles, which is also a killer disease.
• If measles parties are becoming more popular then measles must be becoming more common. If not, there would not be so many infected children for the uninfected ones to visit!

Q.E.D.! (stands for ‘quod erat demonstrandum’, understood these days to mean that the point in question has been proven). Measles breeds measles.

The sad thing about this is that the parents genuinely feel that they are doing the best for their children. So please do not let me hear anyone say that the MMR debate is trivial or that parents are silly. They are confused and a lot has to do with the amount of misinformation, badly presented facts and misinformed opinion being disguised as fact. The fact that I disagree with the views of many parents does not mean that I do not understand them and feel deeply sad that they feel reduced to deliberately infecting their child with a disease in order to prevent them getting that same disease. The illogicality of it indicates just how confused they are. To compound this, it is well known that measles is more dangerous to young children that to adults. In 2004, 410,000 children under 5 died from the disease.

According to the UK Sutton Guardian on July 6th, the Sutton and Merton Primary Care Trust gives a MMR vaccination to children at age 12 months and another at age 15 months. My son was still recovering from meningitis 3 months after his measles vaccination (I still support the MMR since measles is worse!).

According to the NHS, the national schedule is one jab at 13 months and another at 3 years 4 months. Some difference! Sutton Guardian readers will now believe that their child will get 2 MMR jabs in the space of 3 months! No wonder parents are nervous. I think what the spokesperson meant to say was that the vaccination is given between 12 and 15 months, and that this was a genuine error, but needs to be rectified.

It could be argued that this should have been checked before going to press, but newspaper editors are busy people and must expect Health Trusts to know what they are talking about. If the Trust concerned gives an explanation of the policy, or admits that their information is incorrect, I will add it to my blog. I have had a good response from Nina Jacobs, the Assistant Editor of the Sutton Guardian, and I will no doubt have something shortly. There has been too much misinformation on this important subject for me to ignore it when I see it. My apologies to the Guardian for my fervour on this very serious and important topic.

Another comment I spotted was in an article by journalist Victoria Lambert. I quote:

Some mothers flatly condemned the injection, believing that the risk of contracting measles was an acceptable one. The disease had been around in our youth and we were all fine.

The thing is we were not ‘all fine’. Those of us who survived without dying or without the permanent side-effects of deafness, blindness, brain damage or learning difficulties were ‘all fine’. Those who did not contract meningitis or encephalitis were ‘all fine’. The rest were not! Then again, it is natural to close our eyes and believe that our own experience is the norm. Those who believe we were ‘all fine’ did not live through the dark days prior to vaccination when measles killed children every year: it still does, but vaccination has reduced it to only 410,000 annually. Only 410,000?

In fact, the single measles vaccination has been available since 1963 and it is probable that today’s mothers, who are making these comments, have been vaccinated against the disease. The single vaccination was generally given around 18 months in these days, for current parents to have missed it, they would have to be aged around 44.

I do not understand how people can refuse the MMR for their children, but be prepared to allow them the individual measles vaccine, citing autism as the reason. This is another example of ignorance of the facts.

The facts are that Dr. Andrew Wakefield came to his conclusion, he claims, because he found that the form of measles virus, as found in vaccinations, causes problems in the gut which releases toxins into the brain and so causes autism. The form of virus, as found in vaccinations, is different to the wild type of measles virus. Therefore, why should the single vaccination be any safer than getting it as part of the triple vaccination? It is the measles part of the MMR which is claimed to cause the problem!

In Japan, where the MMR was stopped for other reasons, it was found that the rate of autism continued to increase at the same rate after the ban as before it.

That apart, however, Wakefield’s evidence has been shown to be faulty and the GMC recently announced that it is to carry out an investigation into his professional conduct. Perhaps this is partially due to him having an interest in the form of patents for individual treatments which would have required the MMR to have been discredited.

I firmly believe that many parents are genuinely frightened to death of the MMR vaccine, and scared to take the chance of allowing their children to have it. I also believe that the vaccination is hugely safer than allowing children to take their chances of catching the wild virus naturally.

However, in saying that, I also firmly believe that there are too many vested interests by individuals, corporations and governments for us to be able to believe anything they say conclusively. Andrew Wakefield had his personal reasons for wanting the MMR vaccine discredited, just as the large drug consortiums have theirs for proving it safe. Governments and health bodies also have their own agendas. What chance, therefore, does the public have of ever finding the truth. We can only go by evidence and statistics, which themselves are open to opinion and manipulation.

I read the Red Flags webpage occasionally and feel that it has something to offer so long as it does not allow itself to be taken over by the lunatic fringe. It is a group with good intentions, but these are too often used as a platform for vituperation against the establishment. However, if you want as close to a balanced opinion as you are likely to get, give it a visit. Just do a search on red flags (NOT Red Flag). Make sure you include the ’s’, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

I was.

Tags: severe autism, diagnosing autism, living with autism, early symptoms of autism, autism in babies, autism awareness bracelet, autism spectrum

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