Being a thoroughly conscientious parent, I receive emails from my daughters' schools and even occasionally read them. This morning I just received a missive about measles. In lieu of reading it, I have decided to write a diatribe (or rant, if you will) on why I think that the decision not to provide separate Measles, Mumps and Rubella jabs on the NHS is a dangerous one.
Let me be transparently clear about this, I have absolutely no problem with the MMR jab and I believe a parent who chooses not to immunise their child to be reckless and socially dangerous. My point here is not in any way that the MMR is a bad thing or that alternatives are required, BUT . . .
What we do know is that separate immunisations work - the very laudable intention of MMR is to combine the three for convenience and to make sure everyone has the best chance of being vaccinated. This is important for community immunity, which protects those who cannot be fully vaccinated (infants, the immunocompromised (e.g. cancer sufferers) and the elderly). However wrong Wakefield* was (and he was as wrong and as evil as a man can reasonably be), there will always be TQ9 elements who will swallow this sort of bile, along with their homœopathy.
The decision not to offer separate inoculation injections means that these parents, desperate as they are to show that they are going to extra lengths for their children in their striving for competitive parent of the year, have limited options and, in many, many cases, therefore, having made the grand gesture of protecting Tarquin and Flopsie from the evil MMR, give them no protection at all, to the detriment of our entire civilisation, before going back to checking the labels on their organic vegan food and sticking coke up their noses without checking first whether it has been cut with Draino.
Again, there is nothing wrong with the MMR, but refusing to offer the alternative is putting at risk not only those poor children who, growing up with TQ9ers already have enough to be getting on with, thank you very much, but also every pregnant woman, very young child and, in the end, human on the planet.
I welcome your thoughts in the comments.
* If you do not know about Andrew Wakefield, he was a surgeon who has been struck off for deliberately and fraudulently publishing false evidence that MMR caused autism for personal financial gain. We still are not sure what causes autism, which I argue could be the next stage of evolution for us and is not a system error, merely a different operating system, but we do know what does not cause autism. MMR does not cause autism.
Let me be transparently clear about this, I have absolutely no problem with the MMR jab and I believe a parent who chooses not to immunise their child to be reckless and socially dangerous. My point here is not in any way that the MMR is a bad thing or that alternatives are required, BUT . . .
What we do know is that separate immunisations work - the very laudable intention of MMR is to combine the three for convenience and to make sure everyone has the best chance of being vaccinated. This is important for community immunity, which protects those who cannot be fully vaccinated (infants, the immunocompromised (e.g. cancer sufferers) and the elderly). However wrong Wakefield* was (and he was as wrong and as evil as a man can reasonably be), there will always be TQ9 elements who will swallow this sort of bile, along with their homœopathy.
The decision not to offer separate inoculation injections means that these parents, desperate as they are to show that they are going to extra lengths for their children in their striving for competitive parent of the year, have limited options and, in many, many cases, therefore, having made the grand gesture of protecting Tarquin and Flopsie from the evil MMR, give them no protection at all, to the detriment of our entire civilisation, before going back to checking the labels on their organic vegan food and sticking coke up their noses without checking first whether it has been cut with Draino.
Again, there is nothing wrong with the MMR, but refusing to offer the alternative is putting at risk not only those poor children who, growing up with TQ9ers already have enough to be getting on with, thank you very much, but also every pregnant woman, very young child and, in the end, human on the planet.
I welcome your thoughts in the comments.
* If you do not know about Andrew Wakefield, he was a surgeon who has been struck off for deliberately and fraudulently publishing false evidence that MMR caused autism for personal financial gain. We still are not sure what causes autism, which I argue could be the next stage of evolution for us and is not a system error, merely a different operating system, but we do know what does not cause autism. MMR does not cause autism.
