Monday August 6 10:15 AM ET
UK: Mumps Outbreak After Parents Shun Vaccine
By Richard Woodman
LONDON (Reuters Health) - A mumps outbreak is ``spreading alarmingly'' across the UK as parents shun the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine for children, the Independent on Sunday reports.
The newspaper said that according to the Public Health Laboratory Service, cases of mumps have almost doubled following a drop of 12% in the number of children being immunised with the MMR vaccine. There is continuing public anxiety that the combined vaccine might trigger autism or bowel disease.
It said the outbreak was particularly severe in Northern Ireland, where cases of mumps had risen tenfold from 95 cases in 1999 to 1,000 last year.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Telegraph reports that a doctor who has been offering single vaccines instead of the triple vaccine has been ordered to appear before the General Medical Council (GMC) disciplinary body and could be barred from medical practice.
It said that Peter Mansfield, a former general practitioner (GP) who has been seeing up to 70 families a time at twice-monthly private clinics in Worcestershire, was told last week that the GMC intends to consider his conduct because ``it may pose an immediate risk to patient safety.''
The GMC's intervention follows a complaint by Worcester Health Authority alleging that Mansfield has been putting children ``at risk'' because his actions are ``outside normal clinical practice'' and against Department of Health advice.
Mansfield told the newspaper he would vigorously defend his actions. ``The people who have come to us have denied their children MMR, in some cases as long as 3 years ago. The single measles vaccine I am prescribing is the best available for someone who is unwilling to have MMR. The Department of Health's view is a denial of choice.''
The report notes that a GMC ruling against Mansfield would make it difficult for any other doctor to continue to offer the three vaccines separately and would have far-reaching implications for the freedom of doctors to prescribe the medicines of their choice.
The row over MMR began 3 years ago and continued earlier this year when Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a researcher at the Royal Free Hospital in London, said he had seen 170 children with a new syndrome of digestive problems and autistic behaviour, the ''majority'' of whom had fallen ill after the triple jab. He suggested that the safest option was for children to be given the vaccines separately.
The Department of Health dismissed the research as ``bad science'' and launched a 3 million campaign in January to reassure parents. Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, advised doctors that children should not be given separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines in place of MMR because there was a ``clear risk of harm.''
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