Former Science Chief: 'MMR Fears Coming True'
by Sue Corrigan

The Government is considering flu jabs for under-twos - not to protect the children, but adults they may infect. A former Government medical officer responsible for deciding whether medicines are safe has accused the Government of "utterly inexplicable complacency" over the MMR triple vaccine for children.

Dr Peter Fletcher, who was Chief Scientific Officer at the Department of Health, said if it is proven that the jab causes autism, "the refusal by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history." He added that after agreeing to be an expert witness on drug-safety trials for parents' lawyers, he had received and studied thousands of documents relating to the case which he believed the public had a right to see.
He said he has seen a "steady accumulation of evidence" from scientists worldwide that the measles, mumps and rubella jab is causing brain damage in certain children.
But he added: "There are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and elsewhere who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves."

His warning follows reports that the Government is this week planning to announce the addition of a jab against pneumococcal meningitis for babies, probably from next April. It is also considering flu jabs for under-twos - not to protect the children, but adults they may infect. In the late Seventies, Dr Fletcher served as Chief Scientific Officer at the DoH and Medical Assessor to the Committee on Safety of Medicines, meaning he was responsible for deciding if new vaccines were safe. He first expressed concerns about MMR in 2001, saying safety trials before the vaccine's introduction in Britain were inadequate. Now he says the theoretical fears he raised appear to be becoming reality. He said the rising tide of autism cases and growing scientific understanding of autism-related bowel disease have convinced him the MMR vaccine may be to blame.

"Clinical and scientific data is steadily accumulating that the live measles virus in MMR can cause brain, gut and immune system damage in a subset of vulnerable children," he said. "There's no one conclusive piece of scientific evidence, no 'smoking gun', because there very rarely is when adverse drug reactions are first suspected. When vaccine damage in very young children is involved, it is harder to prove the links. But it is the steady accumulation of evidence, from a number of respected universities, teaching hospitals and laboratories around the world, that matters here. There's far too much to ignore. Yet government health authorities are, it seems, more than happy to do so." Why isn't the Government taking this massive public health problem more seriously?"

Dr Fletcher said he found "this official complacency utterly inexplicable" in the light of an explosive worldwide increase in regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease in children, which was first linked to the live measles virus in the MMR jab by clinical researcher Dr Andrew Wakefield in 1998.

"When scientists first raised fears of a possible link between mad cow disease and an apparently new, variant form of CJD they had detected in just 20 or 30 patients, everybody panicked and millions of cows were slaughtered," said Dr Fletcher. "Yet there has been a tenfold increase in autism and related forms of brain damage over the past 15 years, roughly coinciding with MMR's introduction, and an extremely worrying increase in childhood inflammatory bowel diseases and immune disorders such as diabetes, and no one in authority will even admit it's happening, let alone try to investigate the causes." He said there was "no way" the tenfold leap in autistic children could be the result of better recognition and definitional changes, as claimed by health authorities. "It is highly likely that at least part of this increase is a vaccine-related problem." he said. "But whatever it is, why isn't the Government taking this massive public health problem more seriously?"

His outspokenness will infuriate health authorities, who have spent millions of pounds shoring up confidence in MMR since Dr Wakefield's 1998 statement. But Dr Fletcher said the Government is undermining public confidence in vaccine safety by refusing to do in-depth clinical research to rule out fears of MMR damage to children. He added that the risks of brain and gut damage from MMR injections seem to be much higher in children where a brother or sister has diabetes, an immune disorder.

"That is a very strong clinical signal that some children are immunologically at risk from MMR," he said. "Why is the Government not investigating it further - diverting some of the millions of pounds spent on advertising and PR campaigns to promote MMR uptake into detailed clinical research instead?" Now retired after a distinguished 40-year career in science and medicine in Britain, Europe and the US, Dr Fletcher said that without such research, health authorities could not possibly rule out fears about MMR.

He said: "It is entirely possible that the immune systems of a small minority simply cannot cope with the challenge of the three live viruses in the MMR jab, and the ever-increasing vaccine load in general." He said he had decided to speak out because of his deep concern at the lack of treatment for autistic children with bowel disease, as revealed in The Mail on Sunday two weeks ago. He called the sudden termination of legal aid to parents of allegedly vaccine-damaged children in late 2003 "a monstrous injustice".

After agreeing to be a witness for the parents, he received thousands of documents relating to the case. "Now, it seems, unless the parents force the Government to restore legal aid, much of this revealing evidence may never come out," he said. The Department of Health said: "MMR remains the best protection against measles, mumps and rubella. It is recognised by the World Health Organisation as having an outstanding safety record and there is a wealth of evidence showing children who receive the MMR vaccine are no more at risk of autism than those who don't."
Mail on Sunday, 5th February 2006

My Son Has Had MMR jab, Says Brown (in dig at Blair)
by Nic Fleming, Medical Correspondent

Gordon Brown yesterday made it clear that his two-year-old son John had been given the MMR jab after the publication of a report showing that, in some parts of the country, as few as one in nine children were being given the triple vaccination. The Chancellor said parents had obligations to the rest of society to protect children from disease. Some may interpret his comments as a dig at Tony Blair, who has repeatedly refused to say whether his five-year-old son Leo has had the vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella on the grounds that it would be an infringement of his privacy.

Mr Brown said that in some areas of public health, such as obesity and child vaccination, personal responsibility should play an important part. During a discussion about public rights and responsibilities he said it was incumbent on parents to take into account the interests of others in society by making sure their children did not spread disease. Referring to the importance of children being given the jab, he said: "It's not just an optional extra." Sources close to Mr Brown insisted that the comments were not intended as a criticism of the Prime Minister.

While Mr Blair has refused to answer the question directly on many occasions, four years ago he told Jimmy Young on his BBC radio programme: "We certainly would not ask anybody to say or advise people to have this vaccine if we thought it was the wrong thing for our child."

Vaccination rates fell dramatically following prominent media coverage of a study eight years ago suggesting that the MMR jab was linked to autism. Since then the paper has been widely discredited, and Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, the journal that published the work, has said the research, by Dr Andrew Wakefield, was "entirely flawed" and should never have been published.

A report by the Chartered Society of Physiotheraphy published yesterday showed uptake of the MMR jab varied widely across the country, with rates in some parts of the country still worryingly low. Figures from the Department of Health for 2004-05 showed that in Westminster, London, just 11.7 per cent of children were immunised by their fifth birthday. This compared with a high of 91.1 per cent in Chelmsford in Essex, while the average across England was 73.3 per cent.

Vaccination relies on high uptake rates to be effective and parents who say they have had their children protected with single jabs sometimes fail to complete the course of injections. Doctors are concerned that those not giving their children the MMR jab are putting other children and pregnant women at risk. Physiotherapists are worried because the long-term effects of catching measles, mumps or rubella include arthritis, encephalitis - inflammation of the brain - and arthralgia, which is pain in a joint caused by inflammation.

London is lagging behind the rest of the country, with 57.2 per cent of children having the jab before they are five. The region with the highest uptake was the North East, with 80.4 per cent of children vaccinated. Sarah Bazin, of the CSP, said: "Measles, mumps and rubella are highly contagious diseases and can have devastating long-term consequences. This study demonstrates the absolute necessity of getting health care messages correct. "While the research that sparked controversy over the MMR jab has been discredited, uptake remains patchy across the country, showing that, when panic and confusion reign, public health can be seriously compromised."
The Daily Telegraph, 7th February 2006

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