Fw: MMR Controversy in UK Growing

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Wednesday, February 06, 2002 7:03 PM

MMR Controversy in UK Growing

 

 

> Dear Members and Friends -

> Below is a series of articles posted by Sheri Nakken in the UK

> (actually she is in Wales.)

> The controversy is definitely growing as more parents are waking

> up to the danger of vaccines. Still, the powers that be continue to push

> the fear factor and some are buckling under the pressure.

> --Wouldn't it be amazing if we all printed out info. on Hep B, the disease

> and the vac, and gave it to every pregnant mother we encounter and had

> a ground swell of opposition as is being experienced in the UK over

> the MMR vac? Well, Penney and Mary have both come up with a Hep B

> fact sheet that will be ready for our February Vac Workshop. If you need a

> copy sent to you, please let me know via email. Thanks!

>

> Ingri

>

>

> DAILY NEWS from NetDoctor.co.uk

> VACCINE CRISIS GROWS

> London's Director of Public Health, Dr Sue Atkinson, has warned that

> plummeting immunisation levels could lead to a devastating measles

> outbreak. As new figures showed that half of the capital's parents are

> refusing to allow their children to have the MMR booster jab, Dr

> Atkinson admitted, 'We have not managed to get the message across that

> this vaccine is safe.' (The Evening Standard 04/02/02; p.4)

> http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/news/index.asp?y=2002 & m=2 & d=5#id72694

> ********************************************************************

> Immunization Newsbriefs © Copyright Information Inc.,

> Bethesda, MD. Brought to you by the National Network for

> Immunization Information (NNii). Visit NNii's new website at

> http://www.immunizationinfo.org.

> ---------------------------

> February 4, 2002

> " Eight Out of 10 Are Opposed to MMR Triple Jab "

> Daily Telegraph (UK) (www.portal.telegraph.co.uk) (02/04/02) P.

> 5; Ghafour, Hamida

> In the United Kingdom, a recent poll revealed that eight out of

> 10 people thought parents should be given an alternative to the

> MMR vaccine, which is given to children to protect them from

> measles, mumps, and rubella. According to the poll, which was

> commissioned by ITV's " Tonight With Trevor McDonald, " 85 percent

> of the respondents believed the National Health Service should

> offer a choice between separate injections and the triple

> vaccine. A further 55 percent of respondents wanted the British

> Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to say whether his son was given the

> combined vaccine, and 38 percent expressed a general unhappiness

> with how the British government had handled the campaign to

> convince parents to allow their children to be given the MMR

> vaccine. In separate news, the Public Health Laboratory recently

> stated that the number of children receiving the MMR vaccine has

> fallen below 85 percent. Experts say that no less than 95

> percent of a population must be vaccinated in order to prevent an

> epidemic from breaking out.

> ******************************************************************

> " Measles Outbreak Raises Fears Over Parents Shunning MMR

> Vaccine "

>

> " In 2001, there were 2,466 suspected cases of measles in Wales and

> England, of which 74 were confirmed. "

> And they are acting like this is such a rarity in the news.

> Sheri

> Immunization Newsbriefs © Copyright Information Inc.,

> Bethesda, MD. Brought to you by the National Network for

> Immunization Information (NNii). Visit NNii's new website at

> http://www.immunizationinfo.org.

> ******************************************************************

> Aly from immunizations list

> It seems that SSPE (sub-acute sclerosis pan encephalitis) is not that rare

> when you enter MMR and SSPE into an internet search ! Seems its almost

more

> common after MMR than after measles !

> Here are 3 of the cases.

> Wendy Francis's son, Robert, began behaving abnormally two years after he

> had MMR in January 1990. He lost control of his movements and slept for 18

> hours at a time. Within months he fell into a coma and died in December.

> Robert, then seven, had developed a degeneratative brain condition called

> SSPE (sub-acute sclerosis pan encephalitis), linked to the measles

component.

> Ashley Shipman was born in 1985 and was a healthy three-year-old when he

> received the MMR vaccine. When he was nine his parents Elaine and Andrew

of

> Eastwood, Nottingham, noticed he was having problems with his balance and

> co-ordination. He too was diagnosed with SSPE and died in June 1999, aged

> 14. They received £30,000 compensation.

> Stacey Berry, of Atherton, Manchester was 13 when she had a booster jab in

> November 1994. Days later she started having fits, " stopped smiling, and

> stared into space. " She was diagnosed with the brain disease SSPE and

given

> two years to live. She died in November 2000, aged 19. A post mortem

> examination concluded the disease was a " rare complication " of the

> vaccine " .

> -----------------------

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1803000/1803609.stm

> Rethink on MMR vaccine denied

> Downing Street has dismissed as " completely untrue " a

> report that Tony Blair is considering a U-turn on the

> controversial measles, mumps and rubella (MMR)

> vaccine.

> A spokesman denied claims in the Sun newspaper that

> the prime minister has ordered officials to explore

> the cost of providing separate jabs.

> Meanwhile the Conservatives have called on the

> government to give parents the option of either an MMR

> jab or separate vaccinations.

> The government has consistently advocated the use of

> MMR over single jabs to prevent a resurgence in

> measles cases and the spokesman said policy remained

> " unequivocal " .

> The medical establishment has dismissed claims by

> outspoken scientists and a small number of parents of

> a possible link between the combined vaccine and

> autism and bowel disease in children.

> But coverage of the debate has prompted concern that

> parents are panicking and not getting children

> innoculated.

> Results are expected on Wednesday or Thursday of tests

> on 22 suspected cases of measles as fears grew of a

> large outbreak of the disease.

> Infected children

> Three cases of measles - which can prove fatal - have

> already been confirmed in children from Streatham,

> south London, where take-up levels of the vaccine are

> among the lowest in the UK.

> None of the infected children had received the MMR

> jab.

> Four cases have also been detected in the Gateshead

> and South Tyneside area, which has a 91.4%

> immunisation rate compared to the government's

> recommended 95%.

> A new study is to be published in a scientific journal

> in April linking the measles virus with a form of

> bowel disease.

> The research, to be published in Molecular Pathology,

> found the measles virus in 83% of gut samples from

> children with autism and bowel disorders but only in

> 7% of children without these conditions.

> But the researchers did not look at whether children

> had had the MMR jab.

> And speculation on links between MMR and autism and

> bowel disease have been routinely dismissed as " scare

> stories " by scientists.

> Dangerous disease

> " There is good evidence that measles is a dangerous

> and potentially killing disease which can be reliably

> and most effectively prevented by the MMR vaccine. "

> But the Conservatives are calling for single vaccines

> to be made available on the NHS.

> Shadow health spokesman Liam Fox says it is obvious

> that the public has lost confidence in the

> government's policy on MMR. Health Secretary Alan

> Milburn insisted on Tuesday that the combined MMR,

> rather than single injections, was the best and most

> effective way to protect children.

> 'Herd immunity'

> The latest figures show UK-wide take-up of the MMR jab

> fell to a record low between July and September last

> year with a coverage rate of just 84.2%.

> A Health Department spokesman said that any rate below

> 95% did not give " herd

> immunity " .

> He said: " This means it is not just children who have

> not had the jab who are at risk, but those below the

> age at which it is given. "

> Bob Noble, a trustee of the National Autistic Society,

> says some parents are convinced that their children

> developed autism after suffering extreme reactions to

> the MMR jab.

> " The difficulty we've got is that nobody really knows

> what causes autism.

> " There has been a rapid increase in the numbers of

> those being diagnosed with autism.

> " I wouldn't say personally or from the NAS point of

> view that we would link that with the MMR. "

> But he said some parents were still worried about a

> link, adding: " In this small number of cases it would

> appear that they feel there is a connection. "

> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>

> Excerpted from......

> FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org

> " Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

> ______________

> February 6, 2002 News Morgue Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp

>

> COMMENTARIES

> * US Media's Reaction to Wakefield Study: News Blankout Almost Total

> * From Molecular Pathology, Journal that Published Wakefield's New Paper

> COMMENTARY

> US Media Reaction to Wakefield Study: News Blankout Almost Total

> Going into the third day since medical researcher Andrew Wakefield

> dropped a news concussion bomb with the publishing of his latest findings

of

> measles virus in 83% of autistic children, there has been virtually a news

> black out in the US. With a singular expectation, there has been no news

in

> the press about the latest development of an issue in the UK that has

drawn

> in the government, the Prime Minister, his infant son, and at least 2000

> families with late onset autism, the hyperbolic British press and the

> national health maintenance system into a raging public Health debate.

> The single report that we were able to find outside Europe and the

> rest of the world, is a Reuter's piece directed to professionals and not

> consumers. The article leaves autism out of the copy nearly altogether.

> The article, with its curious spin is provided here below for the reader's

> aghast.

> Also included below is a commentary from the medical science journal

> where Wakefield has published his new research, which urges the public not

> to hysterically leap to conclusions and read too much into this latest

> information. The message is that Wakefield's work does not, they repeat,

> does not prove that MMR vaccines cause autism, a point Wakefield did not

> even attempt to make in this research, however.

> " It doesn't prove causation " agrees Barbara Loe Fisher of the National

> Vaccine Information Center, " but it does go a long way to show an

> association. " In other word, we arguably have a smoking gun.

> The defenders can continue to argue that there is no solid proof of a

> connection between vaccines and autism. However, there is enough evidence

> for a serious hypothesis. Given this latest addition to the puzzle of

> autism's etiology, it is now time for our public health officials to

finally

> shift their focus from spending the public's money on research designed

only

> to defend vaccines, to research designed to get at the at the cause of

> autism.

> The time is over for increasingly silly dismissals of the autism

> epidemic. The time is over to utterly ignore the eyewitness experiences of

> hundreds to thousands of parents who have seen the children slip away only

> after the injections. The time is over for simply insisting that there is

> no proof of a connection between certain vaccines and autism. This is not

> enough, for there is indeed plenty of evidence to suggest there might be.

> For public health officials to remain complacent in the face of this

growing

> evidence is simply not acceptable.

> If our hypothesis about the causes of autism prove to be wrong as the

> defenders insist, for us it will be back to the drawing board, for we

cannot

> join them in their complacency. But if they prove to be wrong one cannot

> imagine the consequences. For after we find the cause, treatment and cure

> for autism, there will be some matters of justice that wait.

> * * *

> Study Links Measles Virus To New Form Of Bowel Disease

> [This above is the supplied headline from Reuters Health and not

> ours.]

>

http://www.reutershealth.com/cgi-bin/frame2?top=/tops/med.html & left=/medl.ht

> ml & right=/archive/2002/02/05/professional/links/20020205clin009.html <- -

> article ends here.

> London - Britain's Department of Health said on Tuesday that a new

> study showing that the measles virus is present in children with a new

> variant inflammatory bowel disease does not mean that the disease is

linked

> to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

> As controversy over the safety of MMR continues to rage in the UK, a

> Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters Health: " We will consider this research

as

> we always do. But it does not show a link with MMR vaccine. "

> The latest research was posted in full on the Internet at

> http://www.molpath.com after some findings were broadcast during a BBC

> television investigation of MMR on Sunday. The study will be published in

> the April issue of Molecular Pathology.

> The authors include Andrew J. Wakefield, whose work at London's Royal

> Free Hospital in 1998 first raised fears that MMR vaccination may trigger

> bowel disorders and autism in susceptible children.

> The study was set up to investigate the presence of persistent measles

> virus in children with ileocolonic lymphonodular hyperplasia, which has

been

> described in a cohort of children with developmental disorder.

> The results showed that 75 of 91 patients with a confirmed diagnosis

> of ileocolonic lymphonodular hyperplasia and enterocolitis were positive

for

> measles virus in their intestinal tissue compared with only 5 of 70

control

> patients.

> " The data confirm an association between the presence of measles virus

> and gut pathology in children with developmental disorder, " Professor John

> J. O'Leary of Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin and associates conclude.

The

> authors suggest that the virus may act as an immunological trigger.

> In a statement, Prof. O'Leary stressed that the research did not set

> out to investigate the role of MMR in the development of either bowel

> disease or developmental disorder, and " no conclusions about such a role

> could, or should be, drawn from our findings. "

> An accompanying editorial also advises against jumping to any hasty

> conclusions about MMR.

> " We are all aware of the public unease about a potential link between

> vaccination with the triple vaccine MMR...and autism or bowel inflammatory

> conditions, with some hundreds of parents of afflicted children

undertaking

> legal action against the manufacturers, " Drs. A. Morris and D. Aldulaimi

of

> the University of Warwick write.

> But they add that it would be " entirely wrong " to jump to the

> conclusion that the measles component of MMR causes the colitis or

> development disorder. " Most if not all diseases are multifactorial in

> nature, and the data here could equally be interpreted as indicating that

> the colitis or developmental disorder 'cause' the persistence of the

> measles. "

> The editors of Molecular Pathology, Professor John Crocker and Dr.

> David Burnett, said that the research was an important piece of work that

> draws conclusions entirely consistent with the data, but that any link

with

> MMR is not justified.

> J Clin Pathol: Mol Pathol 2002:55;0-6.

> 2002 Reuters Limited.

> [The executive editor for Reuters Consumer Health is Theresa Tamkins

> tamkins in the event you may want to comment to her on

> Reuters thoughtful attempt to keep this information shielded from us.

> * * *

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> -----------------------

> Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA

> Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

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> DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE

> *********************************************************

> Ingri Cassel, President

> Vaccination Liberation - Idaho Chapter

> P.O. Box 1444

> Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816

> (208)255-2307/ 765-8421

> vaclib

>

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