There is little more distressing than the sight of someone trying to pass the buck, which made and article in this week's Eastern Daily Press especially hard to take.
Rachel Moore is a regular writer in the EDP and often her pieces about the life and times of a busy mum are on the ball . But this one was self-serving and hypocritcal. Her point was that she and other mum's didn't have the MMR jab after the 1998 scare because they didn't get good enough advice. Oh pl-eese Rachel. How much more did you need?
There was, Rachel, absolutely no lack of good advice about the importance of the MMR vaccination and the unlikely chance of any link with autism. Right from the start. What you and other mothers did was inexplicably ignore the conventional medical advice in favour of the unconventional shock story. Indeed a major outbreak of measles such as in Swansea was actually forecast at the time IF parents like Rachel withheld their children from vaccination.
Rachel also suggested in her article that she and other mothers viewed measles as a "mild itchy rash" - this is also utterly bizarre. All parents from my own to my daughters knew what it really was - dangerous. But from the moment the Daily Mail and others decided some dodgy research that had not been peer reviewed should suddenly stop all parents from protecting their children from this triumvirate of dreadful disease every sane medical authority from GPs to the national Medical Officer of Health was trumpeting the facts - "its tosh, if you don't vaccinate you risk you children's lives, sight and health and a major outbreak or epidemic." Of course they were cautious but what they said was - have the jab!
For anyone to try to suggest it was otherwise to an extent that she and other parents are somehow exonerated from their own culpability is hypocrisy of the worst sort. Indeed she goes on to acknowledge that in time she relented and her sons were vaccinated. Good advice heeded perhaps?
It is worth remembering that this 'scare' was also one of the first to be given the acceleration provided by the internet. If you Google MMR Scare 1998 you get 1.6 million results. And if you confine that search to 1998 you find that within days of the scare there were major news articles urging parents not to panic and to get their kids vaccinated.
Now Wales and especially south Wales has always been an exception when it comes to vaccinations and immunisations. I worked there in the mid 70s and even then medics were often getting the media to urge parents to vaccinate. Don't ask me why but even without the 1998 MMR scare Swansea had a problem. It needs 75% of a population to protect themselves/children for the disease to go into decline and they only just reached it back then.
So I wrote to Rachel Moore via the editor to plead with her to do all today's mothers a favour and put up her hands: she was wrong, she came to realise it and now regrets reacting unnecessarily to a scare story.
And I urged to do it soon because like all hacks she influences people and who knows how long before the next daffy doctor does it again.
Rachel Moore is a regular writer in the EDP and often her pieces about the life and times of a busy mum are on the ball . But this one was self-serving and hypocritcal. Her point was that she and other mum's didn't have the MMR jab after the 1998 scare because they didn't get good enough advice. Oh pl-eese Rachel. How much more did you need?
There was, Rachel, absolutely no lack of good advice about the importance of the MMR vaccination and the unlikely chance of any link with autism. Right from the start. What you and other mothers did was inexplicably ignore the conventional medical advice in favour of the unconventional shock story. Indeed a major outbreak of measles such as in Swansea was actually forecast at the time IF parents like Rachel withheld their children from vaccination.
Rachel also suggested in her article that she and other mothers viewed measles as a "mild itchy rash" - this is also utterly bizarre. All parents from my own to my daughters knew what it really was - dangerous. But from the moment the Daily Mail and others decided some dodgy research that had not been peer reviewed should suddenly stop all parents from protecting their children from this triumvirate of dreadful disease every sane medical authority from GPs to the national Medical Officer of Health was trumpeting the facts - "its tosh, if you don't vaccinate you risk you children's lives, sight and health and a major outbreak or epidemic." Of course they were cautious but what they said was - have the jab!
For anyone to try to suggest it was otherwise to an extent that she and other parents are somehow exonerated from their own culpability is hypocrisy of the worst sort. Indeed she goes on to acknowledge that in time she relented and her sons were vaccinated. Good advice heeded perhaps?
It is worth remembering that this 'scare' was also one of the first to be given the acceleration provided by the internet. If you Google MMR Scare 1998 you get 1.6 million results. And if you confine that search to 1998 you find that within days of the scare there were major news articles urging parents not to panic and to get their kids vaccinated.
Now Wales and especially south Wales has always been an exception when it comes to vaccinations and immunisations. I worked there in the mid 70s and even then medics were often getting the media to urge parents to vaccinate. Don't ask me why but even without the 1998 MMR scare Swansea had a problem. It needs 75% of a population to protect themselves/children for the disease to go into decline and they only just reached it back then.
So I wrote to Rachel Moore via the editor to plead with her to do all today's mothers a favour and put up her hands: she was wrong, she came to realise it and now regrets reacting unnecessarily to a scare story.
And I urged to do it soon because like all hacks she influences people and who knows how long before the next daffy doctor does it again.
