The immunisation was introduced in the UK in 1988
An outbreak of measles has struck up to 21 children across South Yorkshire, it has emerged.
The Health Protection Agency said five cases had been officially confirmed and another 16 children were showing "extremely convincing" symptoms.
All those affected are children aged between just three months and 12 years who have not had the MMR inoculation.
Eleven of the cases are in Sheffield, the first outbreak of the disease in the city for five years.
The others are in Barnsley and Rotherham.
Letters have been sent to family doctors to alert them to the outbreak.
It's only when your child gets measles that you can understand what a horrible illness it is
Dr Rosy McNaught
Dr Rosy McNaught, from the South Yorkshire Health Protection Agency, urged parents to let their children have the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
She said: "It is the only way to prevent measles. Measles is the most infectious childhood disease. "It cherry-picks the children who have not been immunised. "These children who have been getting measles have been horribly ill with it. "It's only when your child gets measles that you can understand what a horrible illness it is."
Dr McNaught said she expected more cases to come to light over the next few days, as several of the children seemed to have contracted measles during the last week of the school term.
She said children with weakened immune systems, such as those with cancer or leukaemia, could die if they come into contact with the disease.
The MMR vaccine was introduced in the UK in 1988 and by 1992 more than 90% of children were being immunised.
Children are given a first dose at 12 to 15 months and a second, booster dose, at between three and five years old.
Take-up of the vaccine has dropped in recent years because of research claims it may be linked to autism.
But the research, first published in 1998, has since been widely discredited.
What happens when you don't vaccinate a high enough percentage of your population. Sadly, outbreaks are probably going to be the only way to convince some parents that their kids need to recieve their immunizations. They need the more concrete, frightening spectre of measles to overcome the vague (and discredited) fear of autism.
Wonder when the first outbreak will hit the US. *sigh*
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
They were just talking about the effects of the MMR scandal on vaccination rates for herd immunity the other day. Seems we have a practical example to demonstrate better to the parents who still buy the conspiracy theory.
I hope that GP is happy now. He's potentially maiming, if not killing in some cases, children.
Even with the outbreak, it still won't convince people who have totally bought into this anti-vaccine nonsense. I found this article earlier today and I thought it was pretty relevant. I also highlighted a line that's not entirely related but shows the kind of lack of thinking that goes into these decisions.
"How do I know that the Government isn’t hyping up this measles scare to compensate for the fall in vaccination resulting from its cover-up of the autism link?”
This was the question put to me by a father this week at my surgery, still holding out on giving his daughter MMR (the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine).
In Hackney we know that the measles outbreak is real because we have seen 150 cases over the past three months and ten have been admitted to hospital with pneumonia – the greatest number of cases I’ve known in the 20 years I have been here. The high fever, the hacking cough, the sore eyes, the blotchy rash, the inconsolable misery – all these features of the infant with measles had become a distant memory.
The recent upsurge in measles cases in Britain is a sad tribute to the climate of irrationality. Despite all the paranoid conspiracy theories, there has never been a cover-up of the link between MMR and autism. In ten years those promoting this autism link have failed to produce convincing scientific evidence while numerous laboratory studies and epidemiological surveys have upheld the safety of MMR. Yet uptake of MMR has dropped and, though it is recovering, it has still not reached its level of a decade ago and is still well short of the level required to guarantee herd immunity.
Parents who are worried about MMR still inquire about getting the measles, mumps and rubella components separately. This makes even less sense than rejecting MMR altogether. Campaigners against MMR blame the measles component of the vaccine for causing inflammatory bowel disease (which they believe then causes autism). If this – wildly improbable and utterly unsubstantiated – hypothesis is true, then it is as likely to happen with the separate measles vaccine as with the combined vaccine.
AntiMMR campaigners are critical of the many MMR safety studies: yet there are no studies whatever of the safety or efficacy of the programme of separate vaccinations (though it is certain that the inevitable delays in giving the vaccines will leave children vulnerable to these infections).
The rise of a combination of extreme scepticism towards established sources of authority in science and medicine and anxiety about environmental threats to our wellbeing has led many to put their faith in self-proclaimed mavericks and alternative healers and charlatans. The recent outbreaks of measles, which resulted last year in the first childhood death for 15 years, shows how dangerous this credulity can be.
As doctors, we are grappling in our surgeries with fear and confusion, exacerbated by an apparently endless series of health scares and panics. A campaigner came to me convinced that a local mobile phone mast was causing her breathing difficulties; later she admitted that she smoked 30 cigarettes a day. A young man, committed to the “near-death” experiences offered by inhaling the veterinary tranquilliser ketamine in the course of weekend clubbing binges, inquired whether I would check his serum cholesterol level to assess his long-term risk of coronary heart disease. Patients who consume vitamins, antioxidants and herbs by the bucketful commonly refuse to take medication recommended for high blood pressure or some other condition because they “don’t want to get hooked on tablets”. Some patients even refuse chemotherapy for cancer in favour of homoeopathy, acupuncture or aromatherapy.
One of the most potent forces of irrationality in healthcare, one with a particularly baleful influence in the MMR controversy, has been promoted by the Government. It has elevated consumer choice – and subjective belief – over medical expertise. If, as successive health ministers have proclaimed, patient choice must become the driving force in the health service, then why – as parents inquired in my surgery this week – can they not choose to have separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations on the NHS? But the problem revealed by the MMR scare is that individual choice cannot be reconciled with a mass childhood immunisation programme.
The object of immunisation policy is not to provide a “pick and mix” selection to the public, but to provide a coherent programme for the prevention of infectious diseases. A strong body of scientific evidence confirms that MMR provides the best protection for both individual children and for society. As a consequence of ill-informed choices made in a climate of fear irresponsibly cultivated by antivaccine campaigners and vested interests, we now face outbreaks of measles. The choice to refuse MMR to avoid an entirely speculative risk of autism results in children being exposed to the real risks of measles.
As Stevie Wonder so presciently sang:
When you believe in things that you don’t understand, Then you suffer, Superstition ain’t the way.
Michael Fitzpatrick is a GP in Hackney, East London, and author of MMR and Autism: What Parents Need to Know
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner
LadyTevar wrote:Wonder when the first outbreak will hit the US. *sigh*
Measles never went away here. I'm sure you can get the exact numbers from the CDC, but we have episodes of measles in insular religious communities that don't vaccinate, among immigrants who have spotty or non-existant prior immunization, and among the very poor who manage to evade immunization requirements.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
