Anti-vaccination group critical of anthrax studies. Going without.

Shot in the dark; All Australian children receive the MMR jab when they're a year old but serious concerns have been raised about the safety...

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Anti-vaccination group critical of anthrax studies. 163 words 16 February 2003 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News ABCNEW English (c) 2003 Australian Broadcasting Corporation An anti-vaccination lobby group says it doubts the Federal Government has information proving the safety of the anthrax inoculation being given to Australian troops. Defence Minister Robert Hill has offered to share his information on the vaccine with Australian Medical Association president Kerryn Phelps, after she expressed concerns about its safety. Meryl Dorey from the Australian Vaccination Network says the Government should release all documents it has on the vaccine because most of the information about it in the public domain is not positive. "Out of all the studies that have been done recently, there's only one of them that puts a positive light on the vaccine, and that's one that was put out by the Institute of Medicine, but was funded by the Department of Defence in the United States," she said. "I believe that they had a bit of a vested interest in making sure that that study came out positive." Document abcnew0020030218dz2g000cp

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Going without. 278 words 3 April 2003 Herald-Sun HERSUN 26 English (c) 2003 Herald and Weekly Times Limited AGAINST IF you are allergic to chicken eggs, stay away from flu vaccine. WHO's Alan Hampson said chicken eggs were used to grow the virus, so anyone with a severe egg allergy should not have the vaccine. "Anyone who thinks they may have an allergy should check with their doctor," Mr Hampson urged. He said there was no alternative vaccine for people who were allergic. "Occasionally you also hear people say, `I got the flu from the vaccine', but that is totally impossible," he said. "It has been considered possible that people may get mild symptoms but in many ways I think this is a myth." Mr Hampson said a study that gave a group of people the vaccine and another group a placebo solution, found the only reaction was that out of those given the vaccine, some had a sore arm. But Australian Vaccination Network Meryl Dorey said people should not feel forced to take up the vaccination. Ms Dorey said there were many side effects, including auto-immune diseases which had been linked to the flu vaccine. "People should look at the manufacturers infor-mation leaflet which comes with the vaccine, as it contains the ingredients, side effects and the reasons why vaccination is not appropriate for everyone," she said. Ms Dorey said another disadvantage was that the flu vaccine did not guarantee protection. "The manufacturers guess which three strains are included so people are getting a vaccine for a strain that might not necessarily appear," she said. Ms Dorey said for the average healthy person, getting the flu was not normally anything more than an inconvenience. Net link: www.avn.org.au. Document hersun0020030402dz430008d

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Shot in the dark; All Australian children receive the MMR jab when they're a year old but serious concerns have been raised about the safety of this triple vaccine. BY TONY BOSWORTH By Tony Bosworth 1,232 words 30 September 2003 The Bulletin BLTN Volume 121; Number 39 English The Bulletin - 2003 ACP Publishing Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Families launching a class action against the government and pharmaceutical companies, a prime minister who will neither confirm nor deny whether his own son has received the vaccine, fathers who have been to court to force their children to have the injection against the wishes of their concerned mothers, and a high-profile GP who believes the vaccine can cause autism. No, it's not in Australia - this is all happening in the United Kingdom. But should we be concerned because nearly all our children receive the combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella when they reach the age of 12 months? MMR is one of a relatively new generation of combined vaccinations aimed at cutting the number of injections for children - typically, 16 separate jabs by the time they are aged 18 months. And, of course, MMR is also aimed at stopping potentially lethal childhood diseases such as measles. But it is the combined-vaccination approach that has raised concerns among parents and doctors in several countries where MMR is administered routinely. Worries over the safety of MMR are not new. A suggested link between MMR and autism was first put forward in 1988 by British GP Dr Andrew Wakefield, who discovered many children with late-onset autism also had intestinal damage. Wakefield believes the vaccine leaks through the gut wall into the central nervous system then into the brain, causing damage and particularly causing autism. He is carrying out further research into this potential problem but has so far failed to find a conclusive link between MMR and autism. Meryl Dorey, who launched the charity Australian Vaccination Network in 1994 after her eldest son became ill following routine vaccinations, says there is a wall of silence about vaccination problems in general. "During the 1998 MMR vaccination campaign in Australian schools, we issued press releases about the lack of information being provided to parents about the side effects of this vaccine. The government distributed booklets showing six mild side effects of the vaccine. They neglected to include the other 23 more serious side effects that were listed in the manufacturer's own package insert for the MMR II vaccine. We tried to get an injunction issued to stop the campaign until Australian parents could become informed about the issue more fully." As many parents are aware, there is always a risk - albeit rare - of serious side effects when children ar e vaccinated. These risks are generally accepted as minimal compared with the risk of an unvaccinated child contracting a dangerous disease or virus. But what has changed is the move towards combined injections - giving children several different strains of vaccination at one time, as in the case of the MMR vaccine. Dorey says this move may mean fewer individual injections but she believes combined injections overload a child's natural immune system, which can lead to serious neurological problems. Every vaccination does indeed inject a small dose of modified bacteria into a child's bloodstream so that an immunity builds up. Such is the fear and concern in the UK over the possible side effects of MMR that thousands of parents are choosing either to have their children subjected to three separate jabs for mumps, measles and rubella or they are not having their children vaccinated at all. When health departments in Australia launched the MMR vaccination in 1989, vaccination rates climbed to nearly 100%. In the UK, the rate is as low as 82%, a figure the World Health Organisation says is notgood enough to stop outbreaks. The British government and government-backed scientists say that MMR poses no more a threat to children's health than any other vaccine. The problem for the British government is that people remember when the same thing was said about BSE - that it was safe to eat meat - so there is a hig h level of distrust. Additionally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair will neither confirm nor deny that his Page 4 of 5 2012 Factiva, Inc. All rights reserved.

young son Leo has had the MMR injection or three separate jabs, again leading to public concern. "There is a massive increase in autism," says Dorey, echoing Wakefield's concerns that MMR may be contributing to a rise in the disorder. It has been suggested by Wakefield that MMR has caused a particular form of autism - known as new variant autism - in which children deteriorate over time. In Britain, doctors are paid to administer the MMR vaccine. In Australia, doctors receive $6 each time they vaccinate a child, an additional $18.50 if they vaccinate on time according to the schedule, and receive an additional bulk payment if they vaccinate 90% of eligible patients. "In this instance, you could say that doctors are no better than paid salesmen," Dorey says. However, Neil Branch, a spokesman for the federal Department of Health and Ageing, says: "Yes, doctors get paid a nominal amount but that's an incentive to ensure we receive a flow of data and that vaccinations are carried out to schedule. As a doctor, you'd need to have a major practice to make this any kind of money-making exercise. Payment just ensures data keeps flowing to our department." A significant amount of research has been carried out in Australia into possible problems with MMR because of the concerns raised in Britain, Branch says, and the results have been clear. "We are sure there is no problem. If you look at autism, yes, it is on the rise worldwide and no one knows why. It could be due to any number of factors but it's not due to MMR vaccines. Why? Because MMR is given to children at 12 months and autism normally doesn't show up until at least two years, so how could there be a link?" All of the evidence gathered by the WHO and the bulk of world scientists, including experts in Australia, points to MMR being a safe vaccine, Branch says. The Australian Medical Association is even more critical of Dorey and Wakefield. "We've looked at all of the available evidence on MMR and we are completely satisfied that MMR is a safe vaccine," says Dr Rod Pearce, the AMA's spokesman on immunisation As to Wakefield's research, Pearce says: "All research should be looked at but there is a question mark over whether Dr Wakefield's research should have been published in the first place." He added that it would not be possible for Australian children to be given three separate injections in place of the combined MMR - an option in Britain and Europe - for one good reason. "The Australia n health system does not carry separate shots of these vaccines. We are so confident of the safety of MMR that we don't stockpile separate vaccines for these viruses," he says. Care to comment? Letters to The Bulletin should be no longer than 200 words and sent to: bulletinletters@acp.com.au or Letters Editor, The Bulletin, GPO Box 3957, Sydney, NSW 1028. Fax: (02) 9267 4359. Only letters and emails with a daytime phone number, suburb and state will be considered for publication. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Document BLTN000020030930dz9u00011

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