MMR review argues against single jabs
Wednesday, December 5, 2001
A review of all the scientific research to date on the triple measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine shows that there is no case for introducing the vaccines in single doses, according to the authors. Professor David Elliman, of St George's Hospital, London, and Dr Helen Bedford, of the Institute of Child Health, published their review in the British Medical Journal's specialist publication Archives of Disease in Childhood in September and concluded that worries over the controversial MMR are unjustified.
Professor David Elliman, of St George's Hospital, London, and Dr Helen Bedford, of the Institute of Child Health, published their review in the British Medical Journal's specialist publication Archives of Disease in Childhood in September and concluded that worries over the controversial MMR are unjustified.
They say there is no evidence to show that mumps, measles and rubella vaccines given singly are any safer than the triple vaccine. In fact single vaccines may be slightly less effective and safe, they say, because they are unlicensed and therefore not subject to the same quality controls. The Urabe mumps virus vaccine is thought to increase the risk of meningitis slightly, while the Rubini virus gives inadequate protection against mumps.
Dr Elizabeth Miller of the Public Health Laboratory Service, writing in the same issue, supports this view. She says that parents distrust Government experts after the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)/Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) experience and feel that MMR is part of some cover-up. But she says that while the reassurances for CJD/BSE were based on supposition, this is not the case for MMR, as there is a wealth of scientific evidence to support the triple vaccination's use.
In 1998, Dr Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues at the inflammatory bowel disease study group at the Royal Free Hospital, London, published a paper in the Lancet describing 12 children with bowel symptoms and developmental disorder that received wide publicity. In eight children, the conditions were thought to have started soon after the children received the MMR vaccine. Dr Wakefield is continuing his research.
The MMR has been used in the USA for nearly 30 years and in Scandinavia nearly 20.
The research review can be read at http://press.psprings.co.uk/ adc/october/adc-015056a.pdf
