Immunisation

There was an outbreak at the beginning of the year, with the measles, see it's gone from the measles to the mumps, to chicken pox. So there's a lot of the same children had the same things, and I think that's so, you know those children should have been protected from that, but they weren't. I mean, even if you get chicken pox, or measles, when they've had the injections, you'll find the children are not sick with it. If you haven't had the injections, the immunisations they will, they can be, it can be potentially dangerous, obviously especially to pregnant women as well, which there's a lot of, obviously pregnant women around. 

And the children that had measles - have you seen them? How ill have they been?

There's been, there is one case that I did see and it was really quite a bad case. They had measles in their eyes, up their nose, on their tongue, in their ears. All over their body and they were really quite sick with it. But if they'd had the injection it wouldn't have been half as bad. They'd have just had, you know, the itchiness, you know, and a little bit sick but not as bad as what it could have been.
 

The other thing that really affected me was when I looked at what it said about the downsides of not having the, following the MMR programme and the fact that the whole, all the problems that had come about as a result of this whole this report were people in their hundreds refusing to have, follow the programme through. And I mean the three diseases that it's talking about mumps, measles, rubella are really serious diseases.  

A relative of mine basically had [mumps] when he was very young and starting convulsing and I think he was very seriously ill. Yes his mother said it was not a joking matter at all and she really thought at one point that she might lose him. So she's, you know, very much for the immunisation programme, definitely.

I know from my mother-in-law, she's, always spoken, well, she spoke about it before we had children, I was aware that, that, that he'd been very, very unwell with [measles]. And, and I think it impacted quite a lot on her really having such a, a sick tiny child, with two other small children around as well. I think it, it really frightened her and, and worried her. And I don't think it had a particular impact on my decision to, or our decision to have our children immunised. But certainly it's something that you hear about people being very sick with, with diseases now that we don't really think a great deal about. But it, it's, I guess it's, just because it's not so common you don't, you don't really think so much about it. You just think it's something that's just not too, not too difficult and you get over if you have it. But he was really very poorly with it.
 

The immunisation authorities are always accused of exaggerating the seriousness of some of these diseases. And I think it's understandable that if people look back you will see that diseases like measles for example were in the last twenty or thirty years not regarded as terribly serious diseases in this country. But it's interesting also how times change in, or in the way seriousness is regarded. You see it wasn't regarded as a serious problem thirty, forty, fifty years ago for a handful of children to die every year from measles. That was regarded as, because, compared with thirty years previous to that it was really impressive progress. I think that in modern society people would think to have a handful of children dying every year from measles was an unacceptable thing. And I quite agree that it's unacceptable. 

But when people look back with rather rose-tinted spectacles and think, you know, 'Oh, well, you know, we all had a few days off school and granny looked after us, and it was great'. No doubt for the majority of children that was how it was and it wasn't so serious. But if a thousand children get measles, one or two will die from it and three or four will have more serious complications of encephalitis or pneumonia or other problems. And it's interesting in retrospect of course that children and parents only remember the ones that all got better. Doctors remember the ones that didn't. And that sticks very strongly in our memory because we remember those children that died or got serious complications. And we're still seeing some of the children that got serious complications. 

For example rubella now is not taken very seriously. But I've got two patients whose mothers had the congenital rubella or got rubella in pregnancy in the 60s, and they were born with congenital rubella syndrome and are very profoundly handicapped as a result. And that's an enduring legacy. And so when you've seen those cases you become a real enthusiast for anything which will prevent them. And that's how I look at this comparison. I don't think it helps to try and scare parents into getting immunisations. On the other hand I don't think it helps to underestimate or to play down the seriousness of these conditions. 
 

I also spoke to as many people as possible. And my mother was quite a good source because I have elder brothers and sisters and the immunisations weren't available when they were children, and she nursed them both through measles and mumps. And she felt that whilst it was distressing in some ways and they were very poorly, you know, she managed, she managed to keep it under control and she was able to nurse them through. And I felt confident that I give my children a good diet, we eat organic food when we can and we have lots of fresh air. And also we use homeopathic remedies and I felt confident that my homeopath would be able to help us prevent and perhaps nurse through any of these illnesses should they arise. So that's how I assessed the risk in the end.