The
Welsh measles outbreak is a sorry tale.
This
is the latest news is :
· The number of cases in the outbreak has now reached 1,136 since November
2012, up 10 cases in the last few days. There were only 19 measles cases in Wales in the whole of 2011. Despite
60,000 non-routine MMRs administered, tens of thousands of Welsh children
remain unprotected.
The
speed at which this outbreak took hold is sobering but not unexpected. Measles
is called a "childhood disease" because before vaccination nearly everyone caught it and did so sooner in life, rather than later, because it
is so infectious. In Queensland, Australia there is currently a threatened
outbreak and health officials, who have been watching the Welsh outbreak with
concern, are trying hard to nip it in the bud.
It
is a source of shame that this Welsh outbreak has happened. Shame on Andrew
Wakefield who submitted his now-discredited paper to the Lancet. Shame, for
certain, on the many journalists who jumped on the "MMR causes
autism" bandwagon. Shame on the doctors who, even now, are making money by
offering the single measles shot. Shame on those who continue to spread the anti-vaccination message.
Should
we also say shame on those parents whose anxieties were raised by the
"scare" and who are now, rather belatedly, queuing to have their
children vaccinated?
Even
without the alarm bells of a scare story ringing in the background it is not a
pleasant activity taking your baby to the clinic for its vaccinations. Someone
will stick a needle in that tender little arm and your baby will probably
scream in pain. It is easy to feel as if you are harming them in some way. You
are, after all, exposing them to something that is closely related to an
infectious substance. And we can never say that a vaccination, or any other
medical procedure, is completely without risk.
Parents in the Western world are now unfamiliar with the risks and unpleasantness of "childhood
diseases". So it is understandable
that some of them have erred on the side of non-vaccination. One might guess
though, that an African mother who has seen toddlers dying of measles might
have a very different view.
Since
Jenner first started promoting the smallpox vaccination there have been those
who campaigned against vaccination. The arguments they put forward are weak,
illogical and superficial, but nevertheless persuasive. Meanwhile public health
authorities in the UK have been content to let things ride despite signs that
measles and whooping cough were becoming more common. The UK has got away with this for a long time but maybe it is time for a
re-think.
Some
countries require children to be vaccinated before taking up a publicly-funded
school place. Maybe we should be considering something similar. It would not be
unreasonable, I think, to require nurseries or primary schools to ask for a
vaccination record when registering new pupils, as they do in most US states. There
would be a libertarian outcry but it would soon die down. Vaccination should be viewed as one of
the necessary infringements of personal liberty that come with the benefits of
living in an organised society. It protects all children - in particular those
with inadequate or compromised immune systems who are not able to benefit.
We
do not complain about the need to adhere to driving laws, such as keeping to
the left or putting children in car seats and vaccination should be viewed in
the same light.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22641698
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