UK: Sunday Express - Hollywood takes on the MMR jab

[Guest guest]

Not yet available on line - typed copy.

Sunday Express

12 October 2008

Hollywood takes on the MMR jab

**

As celebrities voice their concerns about the triple vaccine and

measles outbreaks continue to plague Britain, Health Editor, LUCY

JOHNSTON speaks exclusively to Wakefield, the doctor who

started the debate.

**

When Tour de France champion, Lance Armstrong, and actress

McCarthy hosted a fundraising gala in California recently for

families convinced that MMR caused autism in their children, a debate

that has never really gone away was thrown to the fore once more.

The star-studded event in aid of Ante Up For Autism, highlighted the

fact that the controversy surrounding the triple vaccine is now

becoming a celebrity issue.

Meanwhile, in Britain, last week saw the 20th anniversary of the

controversial triple jab.

High profile critics of MMR now include actor Jim Carrey, his

girlfriend McCarthy, and the all-girl rock group the Dixie Chicks.

McCarthy and Carrey were recently given an hour on the Oprah Winfrey

Show to promote her new best-selling book, Mother Warriors, which

maintains that vaccines can trigger autism in infants. She says her

6-year-old son Evan developed the symptoms following his triple jab.

" After the MMR Evan started having seizures, " she said. " After I

treated his medical issues, which the medical establishment continues

to ignore, my son recovered from autism and he is not the only one. I

talked to 60,000 mothers and kept hearing the same story.

" Vaccines are safe for some children and not for others. We want to

reduce the number of vaccines. We want the toxic ingredients removed

and independent safety studies carried out.

Few parents questioned the use of the combined vaccine when it was

introduced into the UK in October 1988. However things changed

irrevocably in 1998 when Dr Wakefield, then a gut specialist

at London's Royal Free Hospital published an explosive article in The

Lancet linking autism with MMR.

The medical establishment and government turned on Dr Wakefield. He

was forced out of his job and has been blamed for the significant

drop in uptake of MMR, leading to fears over the widespread return of

the diseases the jab is designed to protect against.

Last week, a Health Protection Agency spokesman pleaded with parents

to give their children the MMR, pointing to new figures that revealed

an increase of 231 cases of measles from 2006 -2007, bringing the

total number to 971. Overall vaccination rates are currently running

at 85 per cent across the country but some areas such as London have

rates as low as 49 per cent.

Wakefield, a father of four, is now based in Texas, where he operates

a charity-run clinic called Thoughtful House for treatment of and

research into autism. About 2,000 autistic children are being

treated. Dr Wakefield and two other colleagues, Professor Simon Murch

and Professor -, are currently awaiting a decision

from the General Medical Council about whether the research they

conducted in the UK breached ethical codes.

In a rare and exclusive interview with the Sunday Express Dr

Wakefield defended himself against critics and denied he was

" courting celebrities " to promote his theory.

" I have only met McCarthy a couple of times. I have never tried

to influence her, " he said. " She has her own story to tell about how

she blames the vaccine for her son's autism. Her story is so similar

to that of many other mothers who say their children were developing

normally until they had the MMR jab between 12- and 18-months, when

they developed a form of regressive autism. She is an important voice

and I have tremendous respect for her courage in speaking out. "

Dr Wakefield and his team identified a bowel disorder that causes

" leaky guts " . He theorised that the virus damages the gut, leading to

inflammation and secondary injury to the developing brain. He

believes this syndrome, unique to some autistic children, could be

caused by the triple jab after studies found the measles part of the

vaccine virus present in the gut.

His critics pronounce him a maverick but his work has since been

replicated by other studies from Italy, South America and various

centers in the US.

American researchers revealed in 2006 that 85 per cent of samples

taken from 82 autistic children contained the vaccine strain of the

measles virus.

Recently the former head of the National Institute of Health in the

US and the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) have acknowledged that poor study design may have led to

underestimation of the risk of autism following vaccines.

Wakefield said no parent of the children treated at the Royal Free or

at Thoughtful House had ever complained about his work and that his

aim was to make sure the children's problems are recognised and

treated appropriately.

" My sole purpose is to help these children and get to grips with the

root of the problem, which is what I am doing, " he said. " Despite

having discovered an apparently new disease my colleagues and I are

being vilified purely because of the vaccine association. This link

has threatened Government policy and drug-company profit. What we're

witnessing over the triple jab is a propaganda campaign based on who

has the biggest budget. I have none while the budget of the UK

Government and its allies is limitless. "

Dr Wakefield, who is to publish a book, The Lesser Truth, on his

experiences over the controversy next year, added: " Unfortunately

much of Britain's media has bought into this propaganda lock, stock

and barrel. Without the manpower or financial back up, I have waited,

watched and just got on with my work. Now the time has come to tell

the story. "

He cites parallels between his story and that of Dr. McBride,

the Australian gynaecologist who first alerted the world to the

danger of thalidomide, the morning sickness drug that caused

widespread foetal malformation, in 1961 in a letter to The Lancet.

Drug manufacturers and European governments resisted the withdrawal

of thalidomide until the weight of evidence and media pressure was

overwhelming.

Do government's still conceal evidence and cover up?

The Sunday Express has discovered evidence that health officials

failed to warn of serious risks linked with the MMR jab before it was

introduced.

According to a secret dossier, five cases were reported of

potentially deadly brain inflammation following the use of MMR in

Canada before it became part of standard childhood vaccinations in Britain.

The internal documents from the Government's Joint Committee on

Vaccination and Immunisation meeting also reveal reports that another

brand of MMR had caused " neurological complications " from the measles

component of the vaccine in the US. The minutes of the committee on

vaccination meeting in 1988, released under the Freedom of

Information Act, blame the mumps component of the vaccine, called

Urabe, for five cases of brain inflammation.

Despite this, from 1988 these brands were administered routinely

without any warning of serious risk until the two brands that

contained the Urabe mumps strain were withdrawn four years later

because of health fears.

Some children died or were seriously brain damaged by this vaccine.

One of these was Hannah Buxton, who was 18 months old when she

reacted to her first MMR jab given in the first week of the new

campaign. She started having fits and died 18 months later in February 1992.

Parents Carol and Tony of Towcester, Northants, did not know Hannah

had been given the strain of vaccine later withdrawn after it was

deemed unsafe. In March 1992 a Government tribunal blamed the vaccine

for her death and the family was awarded a vaccine damage payment.

Dr Fletcher, former Chief Scientific Officer at the Department

of Health, is also sceptical about the Government's position and the

safety of the triple jab.

In a previous interview he said: " The refusal by governments to

evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest

scandals in medical history. There are very powerful people in

positions of great authority who have staked their reputations on the

safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect

themselves. "

Wakefield does not claim he is right about the link with autism but

he believes it needs investigating, not ridiculing. In the meantime

he says the Government should offer parents the choice of single

vaccines. He has, he says, privately asked vaccine policy makers why

this is not happening and been told that " offering single jabs would

destroy the triple jab programme. "

This, he feels is not good enough. " The first priority should be to

protect children from infection with safe vaccines. A cloud of doubt

has been cast over the safety of MMR and parents should have a choice. "

However, parents looking for this choice are finding it increasingly

difficult to obtain single jabs with the handful of private clinics

offering them often running out of supplies.

The Department of Health insists the vaccine is safe. A spokesperson

said: " We believe that the vaccine has an excellent safety record and

studies have confirmed this. Neither population-based studies or

studies in individual children have confirmed a link between MMR

vaccine and autism. "

However, with Hollywood's renewed interest it seems this important

debate has moved ever further from a resolution.

**

The double feature in the Sunday Express included pictures of Dr

Wakefield and his wife Carmel in front of the GMC buildings

with supporters.

A larger picture with the inscription ON THE ATTACK: actor Jim Carrey

carries his partner McCarthy's son Evan as the couple take part

in a Washington rally in June aiming to eliminate toxins from

children's vaccines.

Below, cycle ace Lance Armstrong, pictured with son Luke, opposes the

MMR vaccine.

**

--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

Vaccines - http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm

Vaccine Dangers & Homeopathy Online/email courses - next classes Sept 10, 2008

[Guest guest]

Jackie:

This is truly an excellent piece. When the link is available please share it.

KP Stoller, MD

President, International Hyperbaric Medical Assoc

Medical Director, Hyperbaric Medical Center of New Mexico

www.hbotnm.com

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