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Media Watch - Vaccination
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Media Watch
Vaccines – What the papers say …
with Mary Aspinwall, R.S Hom, P.C. Hom.
The issue of vaccination has also been
the subject of much media debate over the past year or so,
with over 150 articles appearing in the Examiner alone. It
is a measure of the public’s distrust that one quarter
of children resident in Ireland are currently not vaccinated
against measles. Of all the vaccines MMR(combined Measles
Mumps Rubella) has had some of the worst press due to evidence
of a link between the jab and the soaring levels of autism.
Dr Andrew Wakefield of London Royal Free Hospital and his
team of researchers recently presented their findings to the
US Congress as part of a debate on autism. They said there
was now compelling evidence linking autism with MMR. Autism
support groups welcomed the evidence as ‘hugely significant’.
Meanwhile the Oireachtas continues to hear evidence on MMR
and in October 2000 one of the world’s leading vaccination
experts (Dr Bronwyn Hancock, Head of the Australian Vaccine
Information Service) warned the Irish Government to be very
cautious about the continuing use of the controversial vaccine.
Asked if he would be making recommendations to Health Minister
Michéal Martin about the future use of the MMR vaccine,
Deputy O’Keeffe said: “It will all depend what
comes out at the oral hearings - we cannot prejudge what course
of action we will be taking... “.
Questions relating to the ethics of vaccination trials were
raised by a report, issued in November, that revealed tests
were carried out by drug company Wellcome at the request of
the Eastern Health Board on children in care. The children
were used as guinea pigs for the vaccine trials because the
Board was concerned about adverse reactions to the three in
one vaccine (DPT – combined Diptheria Pertussin Tetanus).
More recently it is the Polio vaccine that has been grabbing
headlines. Brussels issued warnings14 months ago that British
blood donor whose plasma had been used in the manufacture
of a batch of oral polio vaccine had since been diagnosed
as suffering from the new variant form of Creutzfeldt Jacob
Disease. Despite these warnings as late as December 2000 doses
from the suspect batch were still being administered to tens
of thousands of Irish children. Minister Micheál Martin
reassurance to parents that there was ‘absolutely no
risk’ that their children would not catch the human
version of Mad Cow Disease from the vaccine were treated with
derision by many.
©Mary Aspinwall
see also:
Dispelling
Vaccination Myths - An Introduction to the Contradictions
between Medical Science & Immunization Policy
by Alan Phillips
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