THE RISK OF A MEASLES EPIDEMIC

So many parents are shunning the controversial MMR (combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine that Britain is at risk from dangerous outbreaks of measles. In some parts of the country, the vaccination rate has fallen to 75%, meaning that as many as one child in four may have no protection against the disease. "We are facing a real prospect of outbreaks in various parts of the UK and we are going to start seeing dead babies," said Dr George Kassianos, a spokesman for the Royal College of General Practitioners. The Government's target for vaccination is 95%, but after reaching a peak of 92% in 1995, vaccinations have fallen to a nationwide average of 84%, largely as a result of fears that the jab may be linked to autism.

……OR SOMETHING EVEN WORSE.

So many Britons now travel to Third World countries, says Britain's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, that there's a real risk that they may be bringing back infectious diseases. Last year there was concern about the spread of tuberculosis, when 50 people - mostly secondary school pupils - were infected in Leicester. The high proportion of Asian students in Leicester's schools suggested that Asian children may have brought it back from India. This year, said The Independent, there's concern about malaria. Unlike TB, the disease isn't transmitted between humans, but the mosquitoes which carry it could 'hitch a lift' on passenger planes; this could explain why recent cases of malaria in Britain have been found near airports. And since winters are getting warmer and wetter, the malaria-bearing mosquitoes may now be able to survive here. The House of Lords science and technology committee has recommended that more attention be paid to air filters on planes to prevent the spread of insect-borne disease.
The Week, 19th January 2002

CTM COMMENT: H L Mencken remarked: "The practical aim of politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

While legitimate, serious disease is of course a real and serious business, how many health scares have been stillborn into the public consciousness to the great profit of the pharmaceutical and medical research industries? For the full facts on vaccinations and their potential devastating effects when compared to the 'risks' of not having them, read Health Wars by Phillip Day and Plague, Pestilence and the Pursuit of Power by Steven Ransom. These books cover the issues the media studiously fails to mention, and discuss the optimum ways of bolstering immunity from disease and the maintenance of great health.