Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Andrew Wakefield has a lot to answer for

This story makes me so cross! How many children are being put at risk because of the fears generated by bad science? I really do worry for when Claudia goes to nursery at 6 months old. It will be 7 months before she can have her MMR and all that time she will be at risk of catching measles because of other parents' negligence, largely brought about by the media response to Wakefield's study.

MMR is safe! Tell your friends.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agree totally! My daughter started nursery at six months too and I worried. A lot. She had the first MMR at 13 months and my health visitor says we should get the second one done soon (she's now 22 months) because Lewisham borough has such a poor take-up.

Bad science indeed. Grrrr.

Andy said...

Very sad indeed...

Max was able to get his first jab around 8 months over here, that was the very earliest they would do it. Not sure of the reason why they wont do it earlier, but he needed to have an extra booster around 13 months so maybe something to do with the cost?

It is normal to have the vaccine over here at 12 months... (We got it early as we were travelling to Thailand.. )

Anonymous said...

From the BBC news story that you have linked to:

"A spokesman for NHS London said in August a grant of £60,000 was announced for each London PCT to to raise the uptake of the MMR vaccine."

I bet £60k per PCT wouldn't even cover the cost of sending a reminder letter to the parent(s) of every child who hasn't had MMR.

If NHS London are serious about sorting this out, then they ought to fund it appropriately.