[lyner]

That MMR fiasco is having more knock-ons.
I really don't understand how 'the government' missed a trick when the fuss started. They just rolled over because they were scared by what that loonie had to say.

I guess Politicians are just as pig ignorant and pig headed about medical matters as they are about financial and military matters. Why do they not listen to advisers?

[DoctorBeaver]

What's the latest then? I haven't been following it.

[lyner]

Lots of young kids are getting it.
We can be sure that some of them will be left with permanent damage of some kind.
I wonder how many autistic kids can be PROVED to be victims of the MMR.

[DoctorBeaver]

I've never approved of tentative results being made public because you get the kind of scaremongering and panic reactions such as has been seen with the MMR/autism fiasco. I think there should be a burden of proof on researchers and they should keep results within the scientific community until such time as it is proven, to steal a phrase from the law, "beyond reasonable doubt" or that by withholding the research more harm would be done than if it were released.

A lot of the time results are made out to be more definite and important than they really are because the researchers want to make names for themselves or, unfortunately, to discredit others. There should be some kind of review panel, similar to those used by the authoritative journals, to ensure that spurious results are not broadcast.

I appreciate that it would be extremely difficult and that it amounts to a kind of censorship, but where releasing such research will probably cause more harm than good we should at least try.

[Andrew K Fletcher]

So why combine 3 injections in one shot? why not have 3 separate injections to reduce the risk of upsetting parents, increasing the risk of causing a reaction or adverse effect by introducing 3 different vaccines in one area of the body? The problem as I see it is one of economics. 1 syringe, one injection job done at a third of the administration cost. Same happened in the gulf war veterans.

The blame is on the idiots that forced a multiple injection when parents were happy to have each injection separately. Don't blame the researcher for advising the risks involved with a triple injection.

[BenV]

Sorry Andrew, you've misunderstood - no risk was shown with the triple injection.  The initial data looked like there may be an association, rather like me saying that every car accident I have had has been in a red car. Further inspection revealed no association what so ever, by which point it was too late.  Personally, I would rather have 3 jabs in one, and would rather that the NHS saved money by doing so - it is, after all, my money they are spending.

[Andrew K Fletcher]

My point was that had they have left the jabs as they were these kids would have been protected against the virus. We had a big scare a few years back with the multiple injections given to troops serving in both gulf wars. There was a lot of publicity about this in all forms of media. Then we have the same government trying to convince parents that multiple virus can be treated with one jab. No brainer that this didn't go down well with parents worried about risks of complications. All it took was a slight doubt about the dangers of complications (even if there were none) and we have a rebellion against the people with the needle and smile. Not hard to understand why so many people are scared off is it?

[BenV]

But I had a triple jab before Gulf War Syndrome was suggested, so it had already been shown to be safe and was in common use before any of the 'scares'.  It would be really daft to go back to a less efficient system because some people were (wrongly) frightened, wouldn't it?  Also, from what I understand, the single jabs were always available, but you would have to pay for them yourself - and expose your child to three times as many injections.

[lyner]

Did the Health Minister not realise the problem was developing or was he/she just not warned? It would have been very easy to arrange a scaremongering campaign to warn parents of the danger of avoiding the immunisation instead of letting parents make an uninformed choice which many of them thought was an informed choice.

[DoctorBeaver]

I don't think it helped in the UK that the Prime Minister (Tony Bleurgh) refused to say whether his son had been given the MMR. My personal view (and I could be wrong -  [] ) is that had his son been given the MMR, Mr Bleurgh would have had no hesitation in saying so. That is a view that was taken by many people I spoke to on the subject.

[BenV]

But then he would have seemed like an irresponsible parent to all the people who thought MMR was a problem.

[Bored chemist]

He would have seemed irresponsible to a group of people who were wrong. I could live with that rather better than I could live with the alternatives.

[DoctorBeaver]

But then he would have seemed like an irresponsible parent to all the people who thought MMR was a problem.

What about all the people who thought Tony Bleurgh was a problem?

But seriously, it would have shown that he believed his own government's utterances.

[Make it Lady]

I didn't SPOT this in the news (ha,ha)

I got a letter recently asking if my eldest son was up to date with his MMR. They said that if I left him unvaccinated I was causing a great risk to my son and to other children. He had all his shots in Denmark. I'm not going to tell them that, just to see what they send me next.

[DoctorBeaver]

They'll send the heavy mob

[rosalind dna]

The MMR jab has been around since the 1970s so way before either
of the Gulf Wars.
All of my nephews and nieces had that jab. When I was a kid that
MMR jab didn't exist so I got all three Mumps, measles and Rubella
(German Measles) when I was 21. It was horrible but I have a
99$ - 1% of ever getting it again.