MMR

UP TO 80,000 children in Wales could be at risk of catching measles because they have not had a full course of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), experts warned last night. The staggering number of children potentially unprotected comes as an investigation is underway into a second outbreak of measles in North Wales.

Take up of the MMR inoculation slumped after a Dr Andrew Wakefield suggested a link between the jab and Autism and Bowel disease. Since then, however, not only has his research been discredited, but a recent Sunday Times investigation has found that he may well have lied.

His Lancet paper said that the families of eight of 12 autistic children attending a routine clinic at Wakefield's hospital claimed that symptoms of autism developed within days after they were given the jab. But by studying confidential and public records, investigative reporter Brian Deer, who has been following the MMR controversy since the beginning, found a different story. Hospital and other records indicated that virtually all of the children had begun developing symptoms of autism well before the shot, Deer's report said. Hospital pathologists examining the children for signs of inflammatory bowel disease were unable to find it in most of the cases, Deer discovered, but Wakefield or someone on the team changed the data to make it appear as if the condition was found, Deer reported in the Times.

Parents of young children take heed.