By Giles Cleghorn
MMR Vaccination has raised its head again this year with
the out brake of measles in Swansea. The
quagmire of facts verses fiction is very difficult to navigate.
Most people seem to hang their attention on Dr Andrew
Wakefield as the cause of the low up take of MMR. As I was active in clinical
work in London in the 1990’s I would like to remind people that Dr Wakefield
was published in Lancet in 1998. The suspicion and fear around the MMR
vaccination started in 1989-91 when parents began to report that their children
have been allegedly damaged by the MMR vaccination. Up take of the MMR declined
form 1990 onwards.
Personally in the last 15 years I have heard no claims
from parents that their children have become autistic as a result of MMR. I
wonder if the vaccines that were withdrawn might coincide with the rate of
decrease of autism being diagnosed in the UK? Two MMR vaccinations were
withdrawn from the market in the UK in 1992 due to concerns about their safety. The Japanese government also withdrew all MMR
in the wake of the public alarm in 1993 five years before the Lancet report
that caused Andrew Wakefield to be struck of the medical register. According to
Wikipedia, the Japanese withdrew the vaccine due to it causing cases of aseptic
meningitis, not a connection to the increase of diagnosis of autism in the
childhood population in Japan. Japan did
see a rise in autistic diagnosis from 1990 peaking in 1995. If you consider
your peak inoculations are in 1990, then your peak diagnosis of any
consequential autism will be diagnosed three to five years after the peak
inoculations. Just a coincidence?
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