MMR debate reawakened

Published on Monday 16 July 2007 01:19

IN THE first half of 2006, there were 449 cases of measles in the UK, the biggest outbreak for over 20 years. One reason for this jump in the incidence of measles is the unwillingness of some parents to have their children vaccinated with MMR, a combined protection against measles, mumps and rubella that was introduced in 1988 to replace single vaccines for each disease.

This fear of MMR stems from a scientific paper published in the Lancet in 1998, in which Dr Andrew Wakefield, then a researcher at London's Royal Free Hospital, inferred the triple vaccine was linked to an increased risk of autism in children. In the decade since the Wakefield paper, every conceivable medical and scientific authority in Britain has rejected the notion that MMR is either unsafe or linked to autism. But that has not stopped many parents siding with Dr Wakefield, or at least playing safe by avoiding MMR.

This controversy looks likely to flare up again. Today, the General Medical Council begins a disciplinary hearing into the conduct of Dr Wakefield, alleging that the research he undertook for his 1998 paper involved gross malpractice, financial conflicts of interest and a failure to look after the interests of the children under study.

Many parents still regard Dr Wakefield as a hero and will view his disciplinary hearing as nothing less than a witch-hunt by a medical establishment determined to cover up its own failures. But these populist views are totally in error. Few vaccines have been subject to such international scrutiny as MMR and it has consistently been given a clean bill of health. The World Health Organisation states that MMR is a highly effective vaccine with an outstanding safety record. The convincing argument for the MMR vaccination - as opposed to six separate injections given over a long period of time - is that it provides protection faster, not that it is cheaper. As for Dr Wakefield, most of his co-researchers involved in the original paper have long disowned him and his methods.

That said, there must be a tinge of doubt that subjecting Dr Wakefield to what could turn out to be a long, gruelling and highly technical disciplinary hearing might serve less to clarify matters and more to confuse the general public. One anti-MMR lobby group is already planning a demonstration outside the GMC.

The ease with which parents are frightened regarding MMR has less to do with Dr Wakefield and more to do with a general climate of distrust towards medical science, the NHS bureaucracy and politicians as a whole. The ultimate solution to this distrust is not longer scientific reports but more openness from the medical community and less spin from the politicians.