Background notes on MMR and late onset Autism
14 February 2001

THE CONTROVERSIAL MMR VACCINE

You are probably well aware of the increasing concern of many parents and medical professionals as to the safety of the MMR vaccine and of the mounting evidence here in the UK, the United States and other parts of the world that the inoculation is linked to late onset autism and other neurological conditions in children. The JABS group has to date been contacted by approximately 1800 families who believe their children have been adversely affected by the MMR and MR vaccines. I would like to provide some background information and facts which you might find helpful.

On the 13 October 1997 Tessa Jowell called together a group which included Sir Kenneth Calman (former Chief Medical Officer), and other senior advisers from the Department of Health, Llew Smith MP, Doctor Andrew Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith from the London Royal Free Hospital, Richard Barr (Alexander Harris Solicitors) and myself representing the JABS group to discuss the safety problems of the MMR vaccine. I provided a list of over 500 children from around the UK and Richard Barr provided details of some 1200 children to the Health Minister. The information provided demonstrated that:

On conclusion of the meeting Tessa Jowell agreed to the request by Doctor Wakefield that a forum should be held and paid for by government funds when all of his forthcoming scientific papers had been published. Experts would be invited by both Doctor Wakefield and Sir Kenneth Calman. What was actually convened was a one day "closed" seminar at the Medical Research Council on the 23 March 1998, under the chairmanship of Professor Sir John Pattison. The meeting only included experts selected by the Department of Health. Family representatives were not invited to participate. Following the one day seminar at the Medical Research Council on the 23rd March 1998, Sir Kenneth Calman, acted as spokesperson and gave a press statement to the effect that the 37 experts had reached the conclusion that MMR vaccines were not implicated in the increasing incidence of inflammatory bowel disease, late onset autism and other serious neurological problems. As CMO he was fully endorsing the continued use of this vaccine. The chairman of the committee, Professor Sir John Pattison, was interviewed in a separate news bulletin, the same day, and stated that the committee members had decided that the research to date was not conclusive and that further investigation should be undertaken.

Since then another committee member Doctor Kenneth Aitken, a leading child psychologist and an internationally respected authority on autism, has stated that their conclusions were not revealed in full and that the experts found themselves unable to dismiss the possibility of a connection. He also stated that he believes the vaccine could be causing a new form of autism. There was "insufficient evidence to dismiss the hypothesis that there was a link with autism". He went on to say "I would agree with the conclusions (of the expert panel) that autism as classically defined is not associated with the MMR vaccine, but what I feel is we are seeing a new condition."

The type of forum requested of Tessa Jowell in 1997 to discuss and explore all the evidence of the link between the MMR vaccine and autism was recently held on the 6 April 2000 in the House of Representatives in the USA (click here for the transcript).

The Republican Congressman Dan Burton, who chaired the committee, brought together key scientific and medical experts representing a wide range of views, hypotheses and alternative treatments as well as some of the parents of children who have been directly affected. The witnesses called under oath included Doctor Andrew Wakefield and Doctor Brent Taylor, both from the Royal Free Hospital in London and Professor John O'Leary a pathologist and virologist from Dublin.

Doctor Wakefield's presentation of his recent research demonstrated that he has found the measles virus in the inflamed tissues of the gut in children who have developed autism after the MMR vaccine. This finding has been substantiated by Professor O'Leary's own independent laboratory and also replicated by Japanese scientists. This is a very significant finding and one which needs further investigation with appropriate funding. The Doctor Brent Taylor study of 400 autistic children in the south-east of England is the foundation of the Department of Health's claim that the MMR vaccine has no association with autism. JABS has been reliably informed that the study design is flawed because the case-series analysis should only be used with acute events and not chronic events such as autism. The statistician on Brent Taylor's Lancet paper is Paddy Farrington and he points out that the case-series method should not be used with chronic events.

Two of the main points to come out of this committee are that:-

Following the US Congressional Hearing Yvette Cooper, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, responded with a written answer to Mr Coleman MP on the 3 May 2000:

The JABS group would like the US line of enquiry to form the basis of a British Forum to openly discuss the MMR vaccine issues. British parental concerns are justified in that at present there seems to be a lack of transparency with regard to how vaccination policy is developed and implemented in the UK. Unfortunately, the lack of transparency is further aggravated by the Department of Health's seemingly defensive and entrenched viewpoint that all vaccines are good and all severe side effects are coincidental. Is it not time that some common sense was introduced and the DoH started to listen to parents with genuine concerns?

MMR SAFETY?

The Public Health Laboratory Services MMR safety trials in the UK lasted 3 weeks! Parents were asked to complete health diaries for 21 days after their children were vaccinated. The statement that the MMR vaccine has an excellent safety record is questionable. Vaccine damage does, of course, exist and is accepted by the Government. Following the Vaccine Damage Payment Act 1979 a vaccine damage payment unit was established as a branch of the Department of Health. We have called for the Department of Social Security Minister, Hugh Bayley, to meet with pharmaceutical companies with a view to them making a financial contribution to the scheme as they do in the United States. At present a child has to be damaged at least 60% to even be assessed by the unit for a one-off payment of £100,000. Even with this strict criteria almost 900 children have been awarded payments so far. MMR vaccine damage payments have been awarded for various adverse effects including: epilepsy, Guillain-Barre syndrome (a paralysis condition), SSPE (a brain-wasting condition), profound deafness and death.

USA EXPERIENCE?

Any debate on vaccine damage will have Department of Health officials quoting the massive number of doses given to children in the United States. What is never stated by UK officials is that in the US they have a National Vaccine Compensation Programme. In the last 10 years this programme has paid out over $1 billion in payments to vaccine damaged children of which a 14% share has been paid out for MMR or its components. The drug companies have to contribute to the programme and up to August 1997 they had to pay an excise tax on each dose using a risk-based formula. The DTP and MMR were taxed at $4.56 and $4.44, polio vaccines at $0.29 and DT (diphtheria/tetanus) vaccines at $0.06. This must surely give an indication of which vaccines carry the highest risk of a serious adverse reaction. The US administration will not pay out compensation because of unfounded scare stories. In the US two American parent research organisations, Autism Research Institute and Cure Autism Now Foundation, have recently joined with the National Vaccine Information Centre in calling for independent studies conducted by non-governmental researchers into the possible link between vaccines and autism.

EVIDENCE?

There is much anecdotal and scientific evidence to support a link between MMR vaccine, bowel disease and other neurological problems which tends to be dismissed by the DoH. Doctor Wakefield has described a new condition called autistic enterocolitis which in essence is late onset autism with bowel problems. Doctor Vijendra Singh, Doctor Bernard Rimland, Doctor Mary Megson, all witnesses at the Congressional hearing, gave compelling evidence to support an association between the MMR vaccination and adverse events.

MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL'S INVESTIGATION?

The MRC's announcement that it is to fund a three year research project will come too late for many children. The JABS group continues to receive calls, letters and e-mails on a daily basis from families concerned that their children have been affected by this vaccine. Parents consistently quote the same time frames for symptoms to appear and the same long term problems. Please note that the drug manufacturers themselves provide information on the side effects of their products to the DoH. The minor side effects stated in their sheets are always referred to and accepted readily by medical officials. The severe side effects listed in these same sheets are very rarely acknowledged.

MMR OR NOTHING?

Why is the DoH making it an MMR or nothing situation? With very young children it is extremely difficult to prove vaccine damage. The JABS group also has older children registered. In November 1994 the Department of Health announced the decision to re-vaccinate 7 million schoolchildren to thwart an expected measles epidemic. The officials at the time stated that it did not matter whether the children had had the disease or a vaccine against measles before, they could all be safely re-vaccinated. The children were given the measles/rubella (MR) vaccine. After the campaign the Committee on Safety of Medicines stated that serious reactions to the MR vaccine were very rare, but then admitted that there had been 530 serious reactions. Given that the chief medical officer's figure of 'one in a million' for vaccine encephalitis is usually quoted for adverse reactions and only 7 million - not 530 million - pupils were vaccinated, there appears to be something wrong with their definition of 'rare'.

SINGLE DOSE VACCINES?

Regarding single component vaccines. The UK had a single dose measles vaccine programme for 21 years from 1967 to 1988. The licence was never taken away, I understand that it lapsed as the MMR took over as the main vaccine offered to children. We had a licensed single dose mumps vaccine from 1972 till August 1998. At that time parents started to request it in large numbers - it then became unlicensed! The MCA has specified that "all citizens retain the right to personally import medicinal products for their own use or for that of their families". Unfortunately, the dilemma is that the Medical Defence Union advises doctors against giving personally imported vaccines and without a doctor's prescription the vaccine cannot be imported. In other European countries and in some states in the US single vaccines are available as alternatives to the combined jab.

THE JAPANESE EXPERIENCE?

The Japanese health authorities withdrew the MMR vaccine in 1993 because of reported severe neurological problems and replaced it with separate components. Since the introduction of the single dose programme they have stated that there have been far fewer adverse reactions reported. According to Japanese doctors, where deaths have been reported following an outbreak of measles the deaths have mainly occurred in children too young to be given the measles vaccine.

MENINGITIS 'C'+ MMR VACCINE?

The issues are very complex and difficult to summarise. Meningitis C vaccine has just been included in the vaccine programme. As a parent, myself, I welcome any scientific developments to reduce the incidence of serious disease. My concerns are though that in the fight to beat childhood diseases some children are being caught in friendly fire. I do not want any child damaged by disease but as one of the many families caring for a vaccine damaged child I do not want a child damaged by a vaccine either! Playing the numbers game we have looked at the track record of both the single measles vaccine and the combination MMR. As mentioned earlier, the single measles vaccine was used routinely in Britain for 21 years (1967 to 1988) we have 27 children registered with us from that period believed to have suffered severe problems. The MMR has been used for 12 years (1988 - to date) we have 1700 children registered with us from this period. The Department of Health is offering the Meningitis C vaccine at the same time as children receive DTP+Polio+Hib meningitis vaccines or with MMR vaccines. In the doctors' magazine, 'Pulse', Dr Richard Nicholson, editor of 'The Bulletin of Medical Ethics' and a paediatrician said "There should be more extensive investigation, particularly if it's going to be given in combination with other vaccines."

In the interest of safety we called on the Department of Health to suspend the MMR vaccination programme in 1997 while an urgent investigation was undertaken knowing at the time that single vaccine components could be offered with a time interval to protect children. Not only has the Department of Health failed to investigate our children in light of growing evidence here and other countries but they have also removed the right for parents to exercise free choice by withdrawing the single dose measles and mumps vaccines.

Jackie Fletcher, JABS, 14th February 2001