Letter

Pressing questions from the sharp end

Dear healthmatters — I am writing to call for a debate to be held on your pages on the issue of vaccination. I am a new parent and a frightened one, and I very nearly buried my head in the sand rather than face the painful but informed choice I have made. At least I hope it is informed, which is why I would like some sort of debate between those who are pro-vaccination and those who I have been reading and listening to, who are anti-vaccination. What makes me angry is the wall of smug silence from those in the medical profession who argue for vaccination, but who fail to tell parents of the side effects and contraindications. Their message is that vaccinations are just good without question, irrespective of you or your child’s medical history. It almost amounts to an ideology!

Here are some questions I would like to ask:

...Is it true that in the UK over a period of four years, some 66 per cent of all measles cases were in vaccinated children?

...What are the implications for the polio vaccine if, as the Lancet has reported, an outbreak of polio in Oman was in fully vaccinated children?

...Is it true that the whooping cough vaccine is only 45 per cent effective and that Sweden has banned the vaccine?

...What about the statement by Dr Jonas Salk, who pioneered the first polio vaccine, where he said that the vaccine is now causing most of the polio cases that appear?

...Is it true that known and suspected effects of vaccination include asthma, eczema, increased allergies, encephalitis, cancer, cot-death, meningitis, juvenile diabetes and violent behaviour or does more research need to be done?

These are just a few of the questions I would like answered or preferably debated in your pages. I am just very thankful that I have the support of two groups during what has been a very difficult time. These are ‘The Informed Parent’ who have a quarterly newsletter and local support groups and ‘JABS - Justice, Awareness and Basic Support’. From both of these organisations I have heard of GPs who are also concerned about the issue and who are choosing not to vaccinate their own children. So come on you medical people out there, put your money where your mouth is and debate this issue. I need to know whether the paediatrician Dr Robert Mendelsohn is right when he says that ‘the greatest threat of childhood disease lies in the dangerous and ineffective efforts made to prevent them through mass immunisation.’ Help!!