Who is telling the truth about MMR jabs and autism?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...page_id=17 74

A first word book for babies lies open on a table in Jackie and John
Fletcher's living room. Each page is devoted to one single-syllable
word. Robert, their 15-year-old son, sits quietly, gazing at the
simple, colourful pictures. He cannot read or say the words, but
studies the images intently, just as he did when he was 13 months old,
before his development was halted.


A month after his first birthday, Robert had a devastating epileptic
fit. Dismissed initially as a febrile convulsion common in young
children, it turned out to be the first of thousands of fits, damaging
Robert's brain. His ill health has dominated his parents' lives.

The change in their bright, loving toddler was sudden. Ten days before
his first fit, Robert had been vaccinated against measles, mumps and
rubella (MMR). Unlike his two older brothers, who had been given the
jabs in single doses, Robert had been injected with three viruses at
once.


To the Fletchers, the connection seemed obvious - especially when
Jackie heard about other children who had also apparently reacted to
the MMR jab, developing bowel disease, autism, epilepsy, arthritis and
other conditions within two weeks of having the vaccination.


Now a recent study has shown that as many as one in 58 children in
Britain may have some form of autism - a far higher number than was
previously thought to have been affected.


Two of the seven academics at Cambridge University who were involved
with the research believe this may be linked to the MMR vaccine. Their
colleagues, including autism expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen who
led the study, reject this view.


Thirteen years ago Jackie, a former bank clerk, set up a pressure
group JABS - Justice, Awareness and Basic Support. This body became
the main voice of protest and source of advice for parents who
believed their children were seriously damaged by the MMR injection.


Almost single-handedly she has answered the hundreds of phone calls,
letters and e-mails JABS receives every week. There are 2,000 members,
but many other parents have sought its information and advice about
MMR.


Jackie has worked tirelessly to get compensation for affected families
and force the NHS to offer single jabs.


In 1995, she contacted gastroenterologist Dr Andrew Wakefield after he
published a study suggesting a link between bowel disease, autism and
the measles virus, and began advising parents to request to be
referred to him. She met the then Health Secretary Tessa Jowell to
suggest a Government investigation.


The official view is that MMR is safe. Several recent studies have
found no link between the vaccine and conditions such as autism.


Dr Wakefield's work itself has been discredited. Next week, he will
appear before a disciplinary hearing at the General Medical Council to
answer a number of charges, including publishing "inadequately
founded" research.

The Department of Health says the fact that some children who had the
MMR jab subsequently became ill is a coincidence, with experts
pointing out that children receive their MMR at an age many illnesses
are first manifested.


Meanwhile, Jackie and others who questioned the safety of the triple
vaccine have been accused of scaremongering and putting children's
health at risk. Whatever the criticisms, the campaign clearly struck a
chord. The take-up rate of the MMR vaccine dropped from 92per cent in
1995 to 1996, to below 80per cent in the late 1990s - in some parts of
London it was as low as 61per cent.


Even now, the controversy is far from over. Last November, Dr Peter
Fletcher (no relation), a former Government medical officer
responsible for deciding whether medicines are safe, said he had seen
a "steady accumulation of evidence" from scientists worldwide that the
measles, mumps and rubella jab is causing brain damage in certain
children.


He added that if it is proven that the jab causes autism, "the refusal
by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of
the greatest scandals in medical history".


Jackie and John feel that parents are the victims - indeed, Dr
Fletcher recently criticised the "very powerful people who have staked
their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and [who] are
willing to do almost anything to protect themselves".

While the controversy has raged, Jackie has had the daily struggle of
looking after a son increasingly disabled by his epilepsy. Robert
suffers one or two fits most days and a cluster of half a dozen every
eight or nine days.


He uses a wheelchair, is incontinent and speaks only the words he knew
as a baby. Yet he is good-natured and affectionate, reaching for his
mother to plant a kiss on her cheek whenever she passes nearby.


Jackie sleeps alongside him as most of his seizures occur at night. In
the morning, she and John lift him out of bed, wash him, change his
nappy, feed him then drive him to his special school.


Taking Robert out socially causes mayhem, and holidays - rare as they
are - usually end in trauma.


"Birthdays and Christmases are the most difficult times because you
normally buy presents reflecting your child's development, but all I
get for Robert is replacements for his toys which have been lost or
broken," says Jackie.


"Occasionally, I see little flashes, maybe a sudden smile, of the boy
he might have been."


To compound the tragedy, in March the family's legal battle for
compensation came to an end - not because a link between the MMR jab
and Robert's epilepsy has ever been dismissed in court, but because of
a legal technicality.


"We recently had a report from Professor Marcel Kinsbourne, a
Britishborn paediatric neurologist, now working in America, who told
us that Robert would have qualified for compensation in the U.S."


He said that the measles vaccine was a 'biologically plausible' cause
of seizures, that Robert's first fit happened soon enough after his
MMR jab to be caused by it and that there was no evidence of any other
cause.


He thought "on the balance of probabilities" that the jab caused
Robert's epilepsy, and a barrister estimated Jackie would have had a
60 per cent chance of success in the States, though now it was too
late.


When Robert had his injection on November 23, 1992, the practice nurse
noted an incorrect batch number. As a result, Jackie's lawyers spent
years pursuing compensation from - as it turned out - the wrong
manufacturer.


When they discovered the makers were actually the American firm Merck,
it was too late. Jackie was suing under the Consumer Protection Act
which has a time limit of 10 years in which actions must be launched;
this period had expired.


At her home near Warrington, Cheshire, where Jackie and John live with
their elder sons, Andrew, 24, and Stuart, 20, and Robert, she recalls
that devastating day.


"To lose in the end on a technicality was extremely hard to accept,"
says Jackie, 50. "I felt I'd let Robert down. We wanted to pay for
male carers to look after Robert in his own home when we can't do it
any more.

"But I rationalised that Robert was no worse off that he'd been
before."


Robert was born in 1991. She had given up her job to look after her
children, and her husband John was doing well as a manager of
transport services for Cheshire County Council. "We were delighted to
have a third boy. And Robert seemed like a perfect, healthy, contented
baby," says Jackie.


When it was time for Robert's immunisations, a health visitor
explained to her about the new triple vaccine. "She told us how it had
been used in the U.S. for 20 years without problems and that the
diseases it prevented were deadly.


"She said the possible reactions were minor, such as a slight rash or
swelling, or a small rise in temperature-My dad drove us to the
appointment - he still holds it against himself. There is guilt at all
levels.


"As a parent, you want to do the best for your children and to protect
them. I have beaten myself up about having held Robert on my knee and
consoled him when he cried as the needle went in."


Robert seemed a happy, normal little boy, but ten days later an
afternoon of drowsiness culminated in his first fit. "I found him with
his head twisted upwards, his eyes rolled back, his limbs jerking
violently and burning up," says Jackie.


"It lasted three minutes, but afterwards his eyes glazed over, his
breathing came in shallow gasps and his body was floppy. It was
terrifying: I thought he was dying.


Rushed to hospital, Robert was covered in pink blotches. He woke up
screaming and vomited several times before falling into a deep sleep.


"He woke again at midnight, stood up in his cot and said: 'Hi, Mum.' I
was so relieved. I thought things were OK," says Jackie. But over the
next week his behaviour changed. "He wasn't as contented. He'd always
been easy to keep amused, but now he would crawl around looking for
things; then, finding them, toss them away."


Three months after the first fit, Robert had another, then another
after two weeks and a fourth after ten days. By then, his left side
had weakened and he was losing the little speech he had. His father
John says: "In photos at that time, he looks pathetic. The light had
gone from his eyes."


Whenever the Fletchers took Robert to hospital appointments (he saw a
range of specialists, including a neurologist; an ear, nose and throat
consultant; and a haematologist), they encountered other parents who
said things like "our child was fine until MMR".


They found they had been told the same things by doctors: that there
was no connection with the vaccine because it contained dead versions
of the viruses, or that they had never come across this before and
would take a special interest.


Jackie began trawling through medical books and in 1993 discovered
fits can be caused by infections such as measles and mumps. She
contacted a local health official, who had come across several cases,
and he put a small advert in the local paper asking other parents of
vaccine-damaged children to contact him in order to gauge the extent
of the problem. A public meeting was attended by 150 people, and
Jackie set up JABS.


John, 55, says the negative reaction to their efforts have made him
cynical. "We thought that if parents were concerned, the authorities
would try to make the single vaccines easily available, not close
ranks and pull up the drawbridge," he says.

"It was a shock to discover no one was interested. Tessa Jowell
promised to hold a forum on Dr Wakefield's work, but it was a private
meeting of 37 experts chosen by the Department of Health behind closed
doors.


"The neurologist told us that Robert's ill health was 'probably the
vaccine, but why pursue as you'll never get anywhere?'"


The family think Dr Wakefield is being treated unfairly. "Parents have
nothing but praise for him. No child has been injured by him.


"It's appalling that the Government is determined to crucify Dr
Wakefield to send a message to doctors never to question a procedure
it has decided to follow," she says.


Meanwhile, Jackie and John have faced a long personal battle for
compensation for their son.


They appealed to the Government's Vaccine Damage Unit, which
compensates children damaged by any kind of vaccine, but their case
was dismissed as they were unable to prove the "biological mechanism"
that linked Robert's jab to his brain damage.


So, the family joined 1,400 other parents in suing the pharmaceutical
companies. After many battles over legal aid and running out of time
for action, all of these cases have failed.


"Families have been told that their child is an acceptable casualty of
the vaccination system or an insignificant detail compared with the
numbers saved from the diseases it prevents, but what happened to
Robert is not acceptable," says Jackie.


"Part of me still believes that a man on a white horse will come
galloping up with the answer and justice will be done. Deep down, I
feel that I have caused all Robert's problems by taking him for the
MMR jab and I'm trying to fix it for him. But I can't."


• JABS can be contacted on 01942 713565 or via www.jabs.org.uk

I read the story. Very sad.

However, there is very little evidence that MMR causes autism.

The CDC has web pages that discuss the lack of a link.

http://www.cdc.gov/od/science/iso/mmr_autism.htm

Jeff

Ilena Rose wrote:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...page_id=17 74

A first word book for babies lies open on a table in Jackie and John
Fletcher's living room. Each page is devoted to one single-syllable
word. Robert, their 15-year-old son, sits quietly, gazing at the
simple, colourful pictures. He cannot read or say the words, but
studies the images intently, just as he did when he was 13 months old,
before his development was halted.

The difficulties faced by parents of special children is never fully
understood by those who do not deal with this on a day to day basis.

NOTHING I write below is meant to disparage these hard working parents
whose lives are consumed by their helping their children.

However, this article, and the motives behind it, MUST BE~ADDRESSED.

Snip.

Now a recent study has shown that as many as one in 58 children in
Britain may have some form of autism - a far higher number than was
previously thought to have been affected.


Two of the seven academics at Cambridge University who were involved
with the research believe this may be linked to the MMR vaccine. Their
colleagues, including autism expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen who
led the study, reject this view.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen is one of the world's leading experts on
Autism. He has commented on this article, its contents and its timing.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle2060575.ece

"The story was the result of the leak of an unpublished report put
together by a team of British scientists including Professor Simon
Baron-Cohen, head of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University
and one of the most authoritative figures in the field.

One of the two team members reported as resurrecting the discredited
theory that MMR causes autism is Dr Carol Stott, a developmental
psychologist who once worked at ARC. Baron-Cohen says she left ARC some
time ago. She is now listed as a member of staff at Thoughtful House, a
research centre in developmental disorders in Texas. Thoughtful House is
run by Dr Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist who first raised the
possibility of a MMR-autism link in 1998. "

IOW, this is an unpublished study which was ILLEGALLY leaked by AN
EMPLOYEE OF Andrew Wakefield.

Note that in a few days Wakefield is due to begin hearings to retain his
license to practice medicine. From the article:

"The draft report was leaked a week ahead of their GMC appearance.
Baron-Cohen puts it like this: “We think it [the report] has been used.
They’ve picked out the one figure that looks most alarmist.”"

The bottom line is that this article is nothing more than a smoke screen
for Wakefield who has been thoroughly discredited and proven to be a liar.

What makes it utterly disgusting is that it uses a family struggling
with having to deal with their child's special needs.