No ifs or buts over MMR jabs for children
After years of dithering, Richard McComb explains why he finally pressed ahead with MMR jabs for his children.
We umm-ed and ahh-ed for years but in the end we did it, or rather I did it: I gave our youngest daughter the MMR jab.
OK, I didn’t actually plunge the needle in – a nurse did that – but I had the final say-so, in a “on your head be it” basis.
Livvy had the first inoculation at whatever age it is children are meant to have these things. We never got round to the all-important second top-up injection and kept putting it off, and off, and off.
The reason why we waited so long – and left our little girl, now aged nine, vulnerable to measles (meaning, potentially, pneumonia, fits, brain swelling, meningitis and mortal danger) – was because of a load of unsubstantiated, scare-mongering mumbo jumbo dressed up as “medical research”.
Now, even at the best of times the findings of so-called clinical studies have to be taken with a large pinch of salt. One day marshmallows are “proven” to cure such-and-such an illness; the next day, another set of scientists reveals that bingeing on spongy, sugary confectionary will make your nose drop off.
Most of the time, this jousting for headlines by rival researchers does not cause any great harm and ensures that health reporters can be gainfully employed. However, the MMR scare is of a different order.
Ever since it was suggested there was a link between the triple vaccine (for measles, mumps and rubella) and autism, the rates of uptake have dropped dramatically.
The latest figures, published just last week by the Health Protection Agency, show the number of measles cases in England and Wales has topped 1,000 in a year for the first time since 1995. This is despite the wholesale trashing of the MMR-autism link. Similar links between MMR and bowel disease in children have also been debunked. The Lancet, which published the original research, admits it screwed up.
Oddly, the hideous consequences of non-vaccination and the lack of evidence supporting any MMR/autism association has not been enough to boost immunisation rates.
And so, in the same way that we cannot completely rule out life on Mars – because no one has NOT seen that there AREN’T little green men with pointy heads – large numbers of parents have taken it upon themselves to persist in pursuing the “what if …” approach to child immunisation. I should know, I’ve been there, I’ve listened to the niggling doubt: “What if this discredited research really does prove to be right all along?”
The train of thought is, of course, bonkers and reminds one of the policy applied to the detection of witches in medieval times – if the accused
