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October 2002 |
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WHEN I first started to work in General Practice, my mentor, an elderly GP who had retired many years before, let me in on his 'golden rule'. "Always listen to the mother," he said. "She will tell you the whole story." It was a rule that took 50 years of GP experience to mature. It is advice that has been priceless to me on a number of occasions, particularly when presented with an apparently healthy child. So, I wonder if the parents might, just might, be right when they say that their autistic child was perfectly healthy before the jab. Frequently, they also have the video evidence to prove it! Science and medicine teaches us, at all times, to keep an 'open mind'. But in these days of cutbacks and budgets and an imploding health service, are the individual needs of the patient forgotten in the interests of the 'greater good' of the majority? This country operates a vaccination programme which is free to all children and, in many ways, it is a programme that is the envy of less well developed countries. We all recognise the need to vaccinate, to protect our children from diseases which can cause serious illness or even death. However, the AGP has long campaigned for the Department of Health to produce a booklet to be given to all parents on the birth of their child. In it should be listed the following:
Then, and only then, can they make an informed choice. When we were asked to vote in a referendum, following the McKenna judgement, equal funds were made available to both sides to state their case. And yet, when it comes to one of the most important decisions we are expected to make for our children, we are given just one side of the case. |
Parents, lest we forget, are not stupid; well informed parents are more likely to vaccinate! The MMR was introduced to Ireland in 1988 and, until 1992, we used MMR I. This was replaced with MMR II in the UK in 1992 and, shortly afterwards, in Ireland. The reason? As many as 1,000 confirmed cases of aseptic meningitis, brought about as a direct result of the vaccine. The MMR is a combined live vaccine. At no time in nature is a child expected to fight three separate viruses; yet we introduce three live viruses into a young child and say that we are copying nature. This is given to protect children of 15 months or older from three serious illnesses which, in their worst form, can cause death. The manufacturers list the following as side-effects of the vaccine:
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To this, a number of parents add that their children develop autism, or Crohn's disease, as a result of the MMR. More importantly, following research in England and America, it is postulated that there might be a link between the huge increases that we are seeing in autism and Crohn's and the vaccine (700% increase since 1988 in autism). However, with single vaccines, no such increase was noted. There is a large body of anecdotal evidence from parents which may or may not be true to support this. I, like countless other GPs, am seeing more cases of autism and I have to wonder why? Many parents relate that their child first showed symptoms of withdrawal within days of their vaccination, but when parents expressed their fears, they were dismissed as unfounded and un-proven. And this from a Department still under the cloud of the Hepatitis C scandal, the infection of Haemophiliacs with HIV, the use of vaccinations meant for cows, out-of-date vaccines, use of polio vaccine possibly infected with CJD...do these parents have to wait for two decades to have their worst fears confirmed, as was the case of the parents in the 'Best case'? There are single vaccines available; yet when parents request single vaccines, the Department's only response was: 'We will not provide them or pay for them'. So, vaccination rates have, as a result, fallen to 60%. The Department responds by launching a campaign to promote the MMR, instead of using the money to pay for single vaccines and letting the well informed parents and their GP decide what is best for their children. The Department states that parents are more likely to vaccinate if they have to attend the surgery only once. Since I started offering single vaccines, parents from Cork, Galway, Mayo, Belfast, Donegal and Waterford - and many places in between - are prepared to travel on four different occasions to my surgery in Dundalk to have what they believe is right for their children. But the saddest outcome of this is, because of the Department's short-sightedness, those who can afford to pay will get their single vaccinations; but those who can't must do as the Department says...or do without! |
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IN MANY matters medical, our health watchdogs have a tendency to look across the pond at their UK counterparts – particularly when they are looking for a steer out of choppy waters. In the UK, the MMR debate has been equally as contentious, with one group of experts challenging the findings of another group. The figures, however, tell a fuller story. More parents are refusing to allow their children receive the MMR vaccine. Only 70% of toddlers had a jab in March (of this year), that’s down 6% since the end of last year and well below the British Government’s target of 95%. Public health experts put the ‘significant drop’ down to ‘bad publicity’. There are now fears that low immunisation rates are threatening a measles epidemic and the UK Government says parents are playing ‘Russian Roulette’ with their children’s lives. Dr Mary Ramsay of the UK Public Health Laboratory Service said there had been no ‘good evidence’ that single jabs were effective and safe. |
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October 2002 |