The Gamble.
By Janine Roberts - >
Department of Health cost cuts put school
children at serious risk
Cost cutting measures to save £143
million by the Department of Health, put at increased risk the 8
million children treated in the November 1994 measles and rubella
vaccination campaign and the babies of any girls then pregnant. These
measures may explain some of 200 reports from doctors and parents of
suspected vaccine damage to children.
The Department saved by not having
children checked by doctors to see if they could be safely inoculated
as was the previous practice.. According to the Chief Medical
Officer, Dr Kenneth Calman, the government thus cut the cost of
vaccination from a possible £18.50 a child down to just 62
pence. The responsibility of judging if a child was healthy enough to
be vaccinated was instead left to parents. At the same time the
Department of Health made this task difficult for parents by not
passing on to them the warnings issued by the vaccine's
manufacturers, Smithklein Beecham.
SmithKlein Beecham reported an association
between a disease known as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP)
and the rubella component of both the the MR vaccine used last
November and the MMR used for infants. Government scientists, in the
Lancet of the 4th March, stated: "The estimated absolute risk of 1 in
24,000 was 5 times that ... reported by clinicians" They thus
predicted last November's campaign would cause 333 children to fall
victim to this disease.
Dawn Corrigan is the mother of a 1 year
old son, George, who came down with ITP last December. She reports:
"On Christmas Day, 10 days after he had the MMR, I found his nappy
full of blood. His nose then started bleeding. The roof of his mouth
was dark mauve. His skin was covered in spots. It was really
frightening. He was 2 weeks in hospital and still is not fully
recovered."
There were other warnings the Health
Department did not pass on. One was that no child should be
vaccinated who was allergic to neomycin, a constituent of the
vaccine. Lizzie, a 4 year old who had won the Greater London August
1994 Miss Pears competition, collapsed in shock within 3 minutes of
being inoculated last November due to an allergy to neomycin. Her
mother, Annie Clough, an actress in "Causality", reported: " My
daughter immediately vomited and then went unconscious. I was
absolutely amazed and shocked. She is now totally scared of
needles."
Tony Gregory's 9 year old daughter Amy
immediately reacted. "She collapsed within an hour. Next day she was
vomiting constantly, had diarrhea and was covered in a nettle rash.
Many local children were affected. There were children still fainting
in school a fortnight later. We wondered if the batch of vaccines was
faulty. We have epilepsy in the family and on previous occasions the
doctor has not let us have our daughter inoculated. This time we were
wrongly told it was safe.. We are now discussing with our solicitor
legal action for assault on our daughter. I have got my MP involved,
Llew Smith. I will fight tooth and nail to find out why this happened
to Amy." Smith, the Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent, has organised an
House of Commons adjournment debate for next Thursday evening.
The Department of Health should not be
surprised that reports of suspected vaccine damage from parents are
proving much more commen than expected when their own scientists have
observed that doctors only reported one in five case of possible
vaccine damage. Dr Nigel Hickson, the Chairman of the Primary Care
Virology Group said, according to GP News, that the government failed
to make GPs aware of the potential side effects. END
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