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Health See other Health Articles Title: MMR vaccines called one of the 'greatest scandals in medical history' by former Chief Scientific Officer of the UK's Department of Health The former chief scientific officer for Britain's Department of Health who was responsible for deciding if medicines and vaccines were safe for use among the general public says his former employer is guilty of "utterly inexplicable complacency" regarding the mumps, measles and rubella shot. The UK's Daily Mail Online reports that Dr. Peter Fletcher, who was his country's chief scientific officer in the late 1970s, said if it is ultimately proven that the MMR vaccine is linked to autism, "the refusal by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history." He also said that, after he agreed to become an expert witness in court cases – mostly lawsuits – involving drug safety on behalf of parents with vaccine-injured children, he receive a wealth of information contained in thousands of documents relating to cases he believed the public had a right to see. Data are steadily accumulating Fletcher, the Daily Mail Online noted, has borne witness to a "steady accumulation of evidence" from scientists around the world that the MMR vaccine is indeed linked to brain injury in some children. However, "there are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and elsewhere who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves," he said. The MMR vaccine-autism link was first discovered by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a former gastroenterologist and medical researcher, in 1998. His research findings have been savagely attacked by all the usual suspects – governments, Big Pharma, traditional medicine and science – though he maintains today that his findings were sound and that more research is needed to document the effects of the vaccine. Fletcher's warning come amid reports that the British government was planning to introduce an additional vaccine for pneumococcal meningitis for babies, with vaccination to begin next April. Also, the government is considering recommending the vaccine for children under two years of age – not to protect them but to protect parents and other adults they may come into contact with. Fletcher first expressed concern about the MMR vaccine in 2001, the Daily Mail Online reported. He said at the time that safety trials before the vaccine was introduced in his country were not adequate. And now he says he is afraid that what he suspected is becoming more apparent, given the rising number of autism cases around the work and a growing understanding, scientifically, of autism-related bowel disease, which ultimately convinced Fletcher the vaccine was to blame. "Clinical and scientific data is steadily accumulating that the live measles virus in MMR can cause brain, gut and immune system damage in a subset of vulnerable children," he said. 'Why doesn't the government take this seriously?' "There's no one conclusive piece of scientific evidence, no 'smoking gun', because there very rarely is when adverse drug reactions are first suspected," Fletcher continued, as reported by the Daily Mail. "When vaccine damage in very young children is involved, it is harder to prove the links. "But it is the steady accumulation of evidence, from a number of respected universities, teaching hospitals and laboratories around the world, that matters here. There's far too much to ignore. Yet government health authorities are, it seems, more than happy to do so," Fletcher added, saying he found "this official complacency utterly inexplicable" in light of the global explosion in autism cases. "When scientists first raised fears of a possible link between mad cow disease and an apparently new, variant form of CJD they had detected in just 20 or 30 patients, everybody panicked and millions of cows were slaughtered," said Fletcher. "Yet there has been a tenfold increase in autism and related forms of brain damage over the past 15 years, roughly coinciding with MMR's introduction, and an extremely worrying increase in childhood inflammatory bowel diseases and immune disorders such as diabetes, and no one in authority will even admit it's happening, let alone try to investigate the causes." He added there just was "no way" a tenfold increase in autism cases could be the result of doctors better recognizing the condition. "It is highly likely that at least part of this increase is a [vaccine-related] problem." he said. "But whatever it is, why isn't the Government taking this massive public health problem more seriously?" Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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