MMR on Dispatches

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Channel 4 9pm Thursday, a programme (another one!) about MMR. That's it really, just thought it might be of interest to some.

Jimjams I am still a little confused, having read Dr Wakefeilds statement below about the patent issue I cannot find answers. On the programme Deer showed us tow patent applications made by Dr Wakefield, these seemed to show one was for a new different measles vacine. Am I totally mistaken

BTW My personal opinion is that some children could potentially affected by vacines, particularly if they have a problem with their immume system (known or unknown). However I was happy to have my kids vacinated as I was sure they would be fine. My newphew however, who has food intollerance issues (v v bad), I would not vacinate. Does that make sence.

I don't sit on either side of the fence, possibly more pro vacination, but I am sure there is stuff we just don't know.

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Jimjams I did not want to offend and am sorry for your situation. It would be nice to get some answers.I think crunchie and bonyms points represent balanced opinions. But even though the risk versus reward is in favour of immunisation, vaccine damage in the form of autism is irreversable and heart breaking to some families and is not acceptable in modern day society. If there is a link no matter how rare it must be rectified. The cost in human misery let alone financially is just too great to try and sweep it under the carpet. I waited for my dd to get her vaccination because of the advent of murcury free ones, they were so slow in coming i got the old one any way and wonder if it is safe to have her other two thiomersal free. F**k knows?

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Just to endorse the point made earlier - that there is an alternative to MMR - single jabs. I find the Govnt's refusal to make these freely available inexplicable.

Also re measles - surely the risk of severe complications/death is v. small in this country where the majority of children are well-nourished etc? For me autism, however slight the risk, is so terrifying that nothing would make me give my ds the MMR jab. Sorry - probably an insensitive thing to write here.

Sheila Unfortuneatly the risk of developing complications with measles is not that low. I think someone here quoted about an outbreak in Walse recently with about 800 cases and 3 deaths. That is a higher risk than the one of developing Autism

Jimjams, I hope you dont mind me asking but if you had the decision to make now, what would you do? Would you go for single jabs?

Could somebody please explain to me very slowly (am physical scientist, not biological!) what the putative mechanism is for the link between MMR and autism?

I've taken on board the autoimmunity/thiomersil hypothesis, but thought the issues with MMR didn't centre around thimerosil. Or have I got that wrong?

Anyway, depressingly (in my opinion) the programme did its job. At work we've had loads of calls from people who were wavering about whether or not to go for the triple jab and the programme has persuaded them to do it. How anyone could have faith in what that Deer guy says is beyond me personally.

Yes, measles is risky but if single vaccines were available there wouldn't be a risk. It's obvious. The government can't insist that people take their only option which has another risk attached to it even though it may be a smaller risk. They should eliminate all risk.

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The single vaccines are not risk-free, are they prefernot? Just got this from the BUPA website:

MMR does seem to be superior to single vaccines. This is because:

• Using separate vaccines would undoubtedly mean that fewer children would receive all the necessary vaccinations, increasing the risk of these diseases returning.
• Having separate vaccines means there are delays between the three vaccinations ? leaving children at risk of infection from measles, mumps and rubella.
• Three times as many injections (six in total) is unpleasant for the child and inconvenient for parents.

(I don't have an agenda here - haven't made up my mind yet so am asking genuine questions rather than arguing a particular case. Would love the views of people who've delved into it more deeply than I have.)

From a personal point of view, the 2nd reason below is the most worrying. Is it a real concern?

"They should eliminate all risk."

Unfortunately an impossibility in the real world. Everything we do is a balance of risks.

As the parent of one child with diagnosed autism and another child who is about to be assessed for possible autism I have to disagree with the issue that we all think "My child is autistic. Who or what can I blame?"

My boys both had the MMR and I don't believe it had anything to do with their being autistic at all. I don't think that the thimerosil in the DTP did ds1 any favours (he stopped breathing after both doses and we were told not to let him have any further doses). However, just because it didn't happen to my children doesn't mean that I think it couldn't happen to others.

I also hate the argument that symptoms and signs of autism suddenly appear at 18 months anyway and that the parents just didn't realise that there was a problem. Ds1 had a relatively early diagnosis as he was still only 3.5yrs old. With hindsight all the signs were there right from birth. The symptoms didn't just appear out of the blue one day. Again with ds2 (still only 21mths old) the signs were there through babyhood. He didn't suddenly start displaying autistic traits one day.

I'm very much pro-choice. The MMR was IMO the best option for my boys. Single jabs may be best for others. No jabs at all may also be the option for other families. Telling parents that it's the MMR or nothing is wrong IMHO.

Amai, that is a really interesting link!
Thanks for that.
I have nearly finished dd's Vaccinations, (some she's had, some not) but have another on the way so dread going through it all again!
I must say, i DO worry about the effect all these vaccinbes are gonna have onon future generations!!(My main concern is my child, but when i read up i think that nobody has actually thought ahead!!)

I think I mentioned this in a previous thread. Over 500 million doses of MMR has been administered in over 80 countries for nearly 30 years. The National Autism Society says that regressive autism has remained constant since the introduction of MMR.

Ultimately, people will believe what they want and I agree with Coppertop about the signs being there before diagnosis. My nephew has autism and my brother (his father) believes it to have been caused by the MMR jab. However, my mother noticed the signs from when he was about 4 or 5 months old. My other brother is autistic so she recognised the signs. Despite this, my brother blames the jab. Ultimately, parents need something or someone to blame and if this makes it easier for my brother to cope, so be it.

From my personal experience and from what I've read, the experts believe that autism is caused by some genetic disorder. I have twin DSs so I do sometimes wonder if they at risk but I can't waste my life living on "what if". What will be, will be.

Socci I am no scientist but I thought that the risk (if there is one) in developing Autism from the MMR was still very low (if you think about the millions of jabs every year) and that Jumjams herself said on these threads say that within the Autism community aonly about 7% of Autsim cases could possibly be put down to the MMR.

However If your child catches mealses the risk of long term problems and death is higher (still i don't have figures to hand, but I think some others would back me up on this). Also there is the issue whether your child would even catch measles in teh first place.

So I don't know that stats and I do think that some children are perhaps affected by the MMR, BUT I WOULD STILL DO IT. It was right for my children. Jimjams who has read everything going and has her own reasons not to trust the MMR still believes it is potentially safe for 'most' children. I think this is true, if I am putting words into your mouth JimJams I am sorry.

Therefore on balance FOR ME MMR was right, and yet for my nephew I would be saying DON'T DO IT!! as he has other issues that I believe would not be helped by having the MMR.

Does that make sense.

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Just to back up what Coppertop says - I also have an autistic son and I don't think his initial MMR had any effect on him one way or another - I was already worried about him long before he had the MMR. However I could construct a plausible case against the thimerosil in the old 3-in-one jabs, as he was a different and much harder to handle baby after the age of about five months, when he completed that course of jabs, compared to what he was at e.g. 8 weeks, before he began them. However I can also see that there is a strong probability of a genetic component to it, as there are certainly individuals with autistic traits on both sides of the family (i,e, mine and DH's). But it is absolutely not the case that we are running around looking for someone to blame/sue/take it out on.

FWIW I thought Deer was horrendous. Just one example - he said how terrible the research was that Wakefield had carried out on autistic children, because it "took three people to hold one child down" to carry out one procedure. Well, I'm sorry, but when my DS1 was three it took several adults to hold him down for ANY procedure - he wouldn't even let a doctor look at his throat ffs, and I remember a dire afternoon in Casualty trying to get his arm x-rayed when he'd fallen off a table... Stuff like that was very pejorative. I watched half the programme then gave up and went to nurse my DS3.

Agree with coppertop. Anyone with an autistic child will tell you that the idea that all the autistic symptoms suddenly appear out of the blue at 18 months is laughable. With hindsight you can recognise when differences kicked in- even if they only become obvious later (and tbh most professionals seem incapable of recognising autism before 3 anyway). I suspected ds1 was autistic from 17 months- but there were signs from much earlier on (a complete obsession with lights) and an obvious regression following illness at 11 months.

Socci is rght- for the majority of children the risk of developing autism following MMR is probably almost zero, for others the risk will be much much much higher.

Frogs- a mechanism isn't that well understood for MMR- other than there appears to be an atypical response to measles infection. Leaky membranes may have something to do with it. One suggestion was to do with measles being an immune supressant and mumps altering the permeability of the blood brain barrier. I think most models now are oversimplifications- and there aren't good working models. May be worth looking at the visceral website though to keep up to date. Inflammation appears to play a role as well.

Cockle- my eldest son had single measles jab (none others as we stopped vaccinating at that stage). He stopped talking about a month after the measles jab, but he was regressing beforehand and if it did play a role it was only as the final straw (in fact his test results he has had don't suggest that it played any role in his case). We think thimerosil was his first hit- complicated by illness at 11 months and the medication he was given for that.

We have had to make the decision again for ds2- he's had no vaccinations at all. DS3 is due next month and he'll have no vaccinations. We were going to give ds2 tetanus at pre-school age- but they've removed the single tetanus jab and there's no way he's getting the 5 in 1.

Uhu- regressive autism has not remained constant. Non-regressive has. All those figures are guess work though as no reliable records are kept. Probably irrelevant anyway becuase if MMR was responsible for an increase in regressive autism then the numbers would be too small to pick up.

dinosaur- ha ha ha about the procedures. Last time I took ds1 (age 5) to the doctors he refused to look at his throat. He goes to the dentis every 3 months- the dentist has never managed to see inside his mouth. When he went for his last blood test he was held down by 3 people. I recently asked my GP about getting a blood test for him and he just said "huh well I'm not doing it" (this was following attempts to get a blood pressure reading). As you say any medical intervention that has to be done on a severely (or often not so severely) autistic child involved restraint. heck if I didn't have a sympatheitc hairdresser who is happy to take and hour, come to our house and follow him around then hairdressing would involve restraint.

Thanks for that, jimjams.

If the 5-in-one is thimerosil-free, what are your issues for avoiding it, if you don't mind me asking?

frogs apparentlt it conytains 2-phenoxyethanol, a main ingredient in anti-freeze, which has not been tested for safety in children

another question i have: if they are now looking at possible harm of vaccinating gulf war soldiers with multiple vacs, how on earth can they be giving the all clear for babies????

because although there isn't any conclusive research some suggest a link between autoimmunity and vaccination (especially multiple vax). Vaccinating does increase the TH2 immune reponse which appears to be involved in autoimmunity. And at the end of the day I think the case for vaccination is overstated- and the risk of side effects understated. Nowadays I take a very different approach to my children's health than I used to. They don't even have calpol unless their temp goes above 40.