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My son has had
MMR jab, says Brown (in
dig at Blair)
By Nic Fleming, Medical
Correspondent
(Filed: 07/02/2006)
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."
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