http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/d...ws.gmcrops

The government's chief scientific adviser criticised the BBC's Today programme and the Daily Mail yesterday over what he called their "campaigns" against GM food and the MMR vaccine. Sir David King said Britain's failure to adopt GM crops had cost the economy between £2bn and £4bn and that falling measles vaccination rates as a result of negative publicity about MMR would lead to between 50 and 100 child deaths.

King criticised both news outlets again for their coverage of safety fears surrounding the MMR vaccine and autism. "My charge there is that your highly successful campaign has potentially led to a situation where we could have 50 or 100 children dying of measles in the UK," he said. Because uptake of MMR has fallen, vaccine coverage in some areas is low enough to allow measles to spread.

"We could still see a significant fatality rate amongst children," he said, adding that all the evidence now shows that MMR does not cause autism.

"That's the basic message that every parent needs to get and I would love the Daily Mail to put a headline in the paper tomorrow admitting that." King said he had had a private conversation with the Mail's editor, Paul Dacre, about its coverage. The Daily Mail declined to comment.

The Today programme said: "We don't recognise that description of our coverage."


(He also talks a whole bunch about homeopathic medicine and GM crops.  I don't agree with his position on the crops, but I'm just glad someone is out there bringing attention to the fact that studies have repeatedly shown NO CONNECTION between autism and MMR)

I don't believe MMR has any connection to autism either, there is one thing I'd like to ask parents who don't want to give there child the MMR because they believe it will give them autism.
"Would you rather your child be autistic or, your child die from either Measles, Mumps or Rubella or all of those three?"
I know some wouldn't listen at first but hey there's nothing wrong with trying until they do.

that article says (be afraid, be very afraid):  that falling measles vaccination rates as a result of negative publicity about MMR would lead to between 50 and 100 child deaths. (now WOULD lead is speculation) what we do know is that people and kids do get sic, do die and do have accidents - we can't protect everyone form everything - I say that those nu,bers are low - for example : bikes and bike helmets and seat belts etc.,.... BAD< BAD parents why don't you MAKE your kid wear a safety belt - you are going to be resposible for killing your child... (I am being ironic here, sorry)

from one of the mnay articles about all the things kids dies from:

"Sometimes the only way to get to where you want to go when you want to get there is to walk or ride your bicycle.

Unfortunately, in the United States:

Statistics show that:
* 6,000 pedestrians are killed everyyear.
* 90,000 pedestrians are injured every year.
* A pedestrian or bicyclist is killed every 3 1/2 minutes.
http://www.tfhrc.gov/safety/pedbike/pedbike.htm

"Each year, more than 500,000 people in the US are treated in emergency departments, and more than 700 people die as a result of bicycle-related injuries. Children are at particularly high risk for bicycle-related injuries...."
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/bike/default.htm

"Every year, about 176,000 kids go to the emergency department because of bike accident injuries. Some of these injuries are so serious that children die, usually from head injuries. A head injury means a brain injury"
*************

epidemics are everywhere.

By the way, thanks for the article/ this thread, I am alwasy interested in vaccine info in hte media and of course anything related to how autism is looked at...
oh and protecting "the children".  (Though I think parents should be in charge of their own kids not the government - just my opinion - for my kids anyway)

Hey I've had measles and mumps. I didn't die (it was before I was vaccinated despite lifelong immunity).

Firstly, the symptoms of autism appear around the age of 2-3 (which is when the vaccine is given). Secondly there are adverse reactions to a vaccine in a small subset of people. Whether this adverse reaction leads to the type of brain injury or immune response that leads to late-onset autism is difficult to say as most studies have meant that ruling it in or out are within the margin of error (scientifically) due to the small numbers of people on the autistic spectrum (vaccinated) compared to the small numbers of people on the autistic spectrum (unvaccinated)...

I might also point out they denied that:-

a) Gulf War Syndrome existed and
b) there was no such thing as BSE (mad cow disease).

Generally politics and bureaucracies deny things that are true to avoid either:-

a) having to pay compensation or
b) spreading fear and panic among the public or
c) involve providing public services more expensively (eg sticking to the letter of the law or doing things safely).

The rationale behind MMR (one jab) vs single doses of each vaccine is that it's cheaper for the NHS to give one vaccination vs three...

Whereas I don't doubt the vaccination program for reducing certain diseases; there are downsides to it too...

Huzzah!

What's there to say that symptoms don't appear much earlier but go unnoticed because they're within the usual range of what young children are like?

It's my understanding that when single jags are given not all children are brought back to complete the course, thus still compromising both their own and herd immunity.  I don't know the figures for this, but I have heard this given as a reason in favour of the MMR as opposed to single jags, and it seems fair enough.

At the age the jabs are given the children are deemed too young to give informed consent; so it is a decision left to the parents. Some opt out of vaccination altogether. All of the three, measles, mumps and rubella are viruses which mutate over time. As with the influenza vaccine the vaccine manufacturers have to predict. For an example of when things go wrong see the Cutter incident:-

By not inactivating the polio vaccine the vaccine basically started a polio epidemic. Whereas I realise in the intervening 5 decades we have improved vaccine safety somewhat; there are still massive concerns in academia about pharmacovigilance; especially as vaccines aren't a drug used to treat something; merely to prevent a hypothetical risk from a hypothetical future epidemic (that wouldn't kill many people anyway). You're far more likely to die of the other things affecting Western culture; obesity, heart disease, drinking too much, smoking related illnesses, car accidents etc etc...

Dealing with them each in turn:-

Rubella:- mainly of concern because of effect on pregnant women. Despite this males immunised too...

Mumps:- death is extremely unusual, just one of those childhood illnesses you recover from after a short period

Measles:- fatality rate maybe 1 in a 1000.

To be honest though; thanks to the vaccination program most people below a certain age have no natural (eg acquired immunity from surviving the virus) vs artificial immunity (from a virus). We get viruses all the time (colds etc). If people followed a sensible lifestyle eg had reasonable amounts of vitamin C in their diet (which doesn't really happen in a Western style diet devoid of many vitamins) had fresh fruit, vegetables, gave up drinking, smoking etc... and weren't in any way immunocompromised (eg elderly, asthmatic, young etc) then these viruses are trifling to be honest with you.

Look at the influenza pandemic of 1918 or other stuff if you want to be scared. Often the effects of the vaccine in trouble caused (side effects etc) can be worse than the effects of not vaccinating. Better increases in life expectancy have been brought about by clean drinking water, better medical resources etc than the vaccination program.

You're forgetting immunocompromised people. If we didn't vaccinate, people who were taking chemo, had had organ transplants, or had AIDS would have to stay in isolation wards--getting measles is almost certain death for them.

People on the autistic spectrum could be classed as immunocompromised anyway. Immunocompromised people shouldn't be taking vaccines anyway...

Immunocompromised could apply to the 25% of the population here in the UK with asthma, or the elderly or the young; it's a rather wide and subjective group... regarding cancer patients, people with HIV/AIDS and people on immune system supressing drugs after organ transplants; all those groups would be advised by their doctors to avoid certain things anyway....

"getting" autism or Aspergers reduces life expectancy too (by a number of years... people can die of adverse reactions to vaccines too.

Um wut?  My immune system works just fine thanks.  Maybe you meant that a disproportionate number of autistics are also immunocompromised.  That's probably true.  Also, asthma?  I don't think that would work out, you'd have a slew of epidemics.

Being male also reduces your life expectancy by a couple of years.  It all really depends on individual behaviour.  Also there's comorbidity issues.