SO WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

“I hear it can cause autism.” “It can give children bowel disorders.” Both of these statements will frequently be voiced by mums and dads who are worried about giving their child the inoculation.

The MMR vaccine, which is available on the NHS for free, is usually given to toddlers as a single shot at their local GP surgery when they are aged 13 months or just over.
Government health chiefs stress that if children are not protected against measles, mumps and rubella, we as a nation run the risk of suffering new epidemics of all three illnesses.
This could mean not just regular measles outbreaks but the return of babies born with defects or children hospitalised or becoming deaf from catching the mumps.

But the jab came under fire in 1998 when concern was sparked by a paper published in the medical journal, The Lancet, by Dr Andrew Wakefield, who claimed there were links between the vaccine and autism – a brain disorder which develops in early childhood and affects social interaction, communication and development in children.

Although only a year later the same publication reported how there was in fact no evidence to support a tie between MMR and autism, the injection still remains a cause for concern amongst many parents.

The crux of the matter is this – there is no medical evidence to prove that giving your child the jab can increase their chances of developing autism - or any other illness for that matter.

But assurances from medics, no matter how revered they are, are not always enough to satisfy parents who will do anything to protect their little ones from harm.

If you don’t want your child to have the NHS jab you can pay to give them individual injections at a private doctors surgery or clinic - but be warned, this won’t be cheap.
Expect to pay around £100 for each jab, which will be administered at 12 week intervals.
The measles jab is given first, followed by rubella and finally the mumps inoculation.

But one mum who doesn’t mind shelling out for separate injections is 32-year-old Naomi Armstrong. Journalist Naomi is planning to immunise her 14-month-old daughter Jess with single jabs. “You can’t put a price tag on your child’s health,” says Naomi. “I don’t care what it costs to be honest. I just won’t take the chance of my little girl getting autism -it’s too big a risk.”

Over 500 million doses of MMR have been used in over 90 countries around the world since the early 1970s.

The World Health Organization is unwavering in its opinion that MMR is a highly effective vaccine with an outstanding safety record.

Yet, despite the clean bill of health, there is now an unprecedented high demand for single vaccines.

In fact there was a nine fold increase in the take up of measles vaccines alone between May and December last year compared to the same period in 2004.

So if you’ve made up your mind that you want your child to have single vaccines, where can you go to get them?

The truth is there are private surgeries and hospitals offering the single jabs, but they are few and far between,

In Essex you can go to Springfield Hospital in Lawn Lane, Springfield, Chelmsford to get the single vaccinations or call 01245 234093 for information and prices.

Log onto www.mmrthefacts.nhs.co.uk – to find out more about the MMR jab.