She was finally diagnosed with the extremely rare childhood disintegrative disorder Heller’s syndrome.

An Australian National Health and Medical Council information sheet on Hib vaccines advises that Hib meningitis can cause brain damage with laterlearning difficulties and behavioural disorders (www.health.gov.au).

On hearing of US reports of an elevated risk of Hib disease in the week following Hib vaccinations, I sought as much information as possible. Through the US Freedom of Information Act (as WDDTY suggested), I was able to obtain adverse reports for 1988-90, when the vaccine given to my granddaughter was first used in the US.

The reports showed clustering of meningitis on day two following vaccination, with an unexpected

involvement of the MMR vaccine.

There are 140 serious outcome reports, with 24 cases of meningitis. Five meningitis cases occurred on day two following vaccination and one on day four; nine are classed as ‘no drug effect’ and nine had undefined timing. The ‘no drug effect’ cases must be vaccine failures, occurring at least a month, but up to two and a half years, after vaccination.

If the five day two meningitis cases represent ‘background’ disease, there should have been comparable reports for all seven days of the week following vaccination. It seems most unlikely that ‘background’ disease cases could be so concentrated on day two.

Seven of the 140 serious outcome children also received MMR vaccine, probably representing those who missed this shot at one year of age. Three of these seven children had day two meningitis. It is most unlikely that the involvement of MMR in day two meningitis is a chance occurrence.

If no one can say which brain damaging illness caused a particular child’s autistic regression, greatest suspicion must fall on the most common illness with features consistent with parents’ experiences. BG, Canberra

For a Western country, most of which now make vaccination mandatory, you can’t get more reasonable than England, it would seem. There are calls that come into our offices and those of prochoice organisations like Informed Parent from parents whose kids got jabbed even though they clearly stated that they didn’t wish them to. But we all like to think that these are reasonable mistakes made by the reasonable and the well intentioned.

And then you hear about the case of a Nottingham family I’ll call the Smiths. The couple, who were very dedicated to natural parenting and against vaccination, had had baby Alexander, who was born normally with a normal birthweight. He was breastfeeding well but, over the first few weeks, he wasn’t gaining any weight. At 28 days, Alexander weighed less than his birthweight. This situation is not unheard of among breastfed babies indeed, many, if not most, breastfed babies do lose weight within the few weeks of birth and then usually only return to their birthweight by age three weeks or so. Alexander may have lagged behind in this, but it wasn’t a gross deviation from the norm. Indeed, the community midwife was so unconcerned about the situation that she discharged the family from her care at 28 weeks.

Nevertheless, being the conscientious parents that they are, the Smiths took Alexander to their GP two weeks later for a check up. When he was nine weeks old, the Smiths asked their GP to come to the house because they wanted the baby checked again, but didn’t want to be pressured into vaccination.

The GP arrived at the door with a health worker. When they heard the Smiths’ position about vaccination, they accused them of neglect. The Smiths were carted off to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, a large teaching hospital in Nottingham, and Social Services were called in. The workers said you basically have two choices. Either you let us take your child into care, or you stay in a family centre where you can be monitored with your child.

Family centres, for the uninitiated, are places where parents with social problems can be monitored around the clock until Social Services deems them fit to be left to their own devices.

Although the Smiths had bought a house in Wales, they were forced to leave it and to put their dogs in care, while they complied with Nottingham Social Services and moved into a family centre in Hull. For the first few weeks, they were never allowed to be out with their baby unsupervised. Twelve weeks later (at the time of this writing), they are still there. They are under constant, unannounced surveillance (one way mirrors and the like) and must comply with a curfew. During these three months, Mr Smith has been unable to work.

Meanwhile, baby Alexander, who is plump and thriving, has reached a normal weight and is no longer at risk of ‘failure to thrive’.

Nevertheless, Social Services continues to maintain that they should vaccinate their child or they will be taken to court and be forced to do so. The Smith’s lawyer, who is not a vaccine expert, has counseled them to accept some vaccinations just to get Social Services to back off. The Smiths are holding fast to their principles, but they are frightened of losing their baby and are very much alone.

This particular case illustrates to what extent government and the social network has abandoned all reason about disease prevention. Getting his jabs wouldn’t have helped baby Alexander to gain weight (in fact, the polio vaccine has been shown to slow growth). Besides, he no longer has a problem if indeed he ever did. Step by step, whether by ‘mistakes’ or coercion, we move towards mandatory vaccination, and lose our sense of reason and free choice.

!ALynne McTaggart

Make sure to come to our vaccine Debate, 22 June, where we will be discussing MMR, meningitis C and issues of consent.

Within a half hour, he couldn’t move his neck and had the characteristic pinprick rash, so I rushed him to hospital. I knew by that time what he had.

They immediately gave him a lumbar puncture and started him on antibiotics. I didn’t allow myself to think what might happen, but just stayed there dealing with it minute by minute. Thank God he pulled through and, five days later, he was able to come home.

The doctors diagnosed it as streptococcal meningitis, and claimed it had nothing to do with the jab. But I don’t believe them.

I know that we all harbour meningococcal bugs, and I wonder whether the jab somehow lowered his immune system so that he would be more prone to getting another form of it.

Although the doctor says that the meningitis C vaccine had nothing to do with it, I have been advised not to give Euen any further boosters of it.

Euen had fits at the time and, when he returned home from hospital, he didn’t sleep for a long time. He’d wake up every 20 minutes screaming.

Even now, three months later, there are still some effects. Occasionally, he goes blank and I find him staring into the corner.

A friend of my mother’s baby has had eczema since having the jab.

A lot of us would like to have been given more information before we consented to having the jab. Even my friend whose daughter died. She refused the vaccine for her other child because she felt that it was too untried and untested, and she knew that meningitis C is difficult to catch.

After my experience, I think she’s glad she did. FC M, South Norwood…….

Sadly, now that there’s a body count, the press finally wants to listen to the story. Not that it’s that easy to get hold of. The Department of Health’s press office is bristling with defensiveness. It’s true that the Medicines Control Agency has had nearly 5000 reports of side effects. But, as a DoH press officer rather sniffily pointed out to me, 80 per cent of those were mild reactions, like headaches, sore arms, stomach aches and high temperatures.

That leaves, of course, 20 per cent, or 1000, reactions that were not so mild like losing consciousness, allergic reactions, persistent blackouts, seizures (the jab appeared to cause fits especially in epileptic children), meningitis itself and behavioural changes such as hyperactivity. I more or less had to wrench out of her that eight cot deaths were being investigated as having a possible link.

Although headaches are being classified as “minor”, in at least two instances that we know of, children have complained of persistent and lingering pain. Like 12 year old Rebecca Hall, of Midsomer Norton, who has suffered 10 episodes of blackouts and headaches since she had her jab. Two hours after she was vaccinated, she collapsed and had to be taken to hospital. Since then, she’s collapsed at school on two occasions and been sent home 10 times.

The DoH’s line is that, according to the World Health Organization, this percentage reaction which represents 1 in 10,000 is low compared withmost vaccines.

That’s, of course, if the 5000 figure represents the true incidence. With the Yellow Card reporting scheme, which GPs use to record side effects, only about 10 per cent of side effects are ever reported. The DoH claims reporting of reactions to the vaccine has been “very high” representing perhaps 40 per cent of all reactions. Which means that the true number of reactions to the meningitis jab is closer to 12,000 which translates into reactions of about 1 in 4000 a high reaction by anyone’s measure.

Oh, but the vaccine has cut meningitis C by 75 per cent, claims the PHLS, among 15 to 17 year olds. The truth appears to be a bit more complex. In 1998 (midyear week 26 to midyear week 26), there were 773 cases of meningitis C and 1850 lab reports of all bacterial meningitis. In 1999, there were 981 cases of meningitis C and 2404 lab reports. In 1999-2000 only up to the 13th week (there were 13 more weeks of numbers in the earlier years), there were 700 cases of meningitis C with 2016 lab reports.

What appears to be the case is that 1999 represents a high of all forms of meningitis, but the figures for all types of meningitis are returning to 1998 levels typical of the cyclical nature of the disease. Or, it may be that, once we calculate the figures from the missing weeks 13 to 26, we’ll end up with virtually the same numbers as the year before. And as other graphs show, the incidence of the disease was flattening out in the 15-17 age group before the vaccine was universally given. In other words, nature is responsible and the DoH is taking the credit.

So, what we have now is at least 1000-3000 children with serious reactions to a jab being given for a disease with very little chance of harming them in their age group. You work out the maths. Then talk to Rebecca’s parents about their feelings about community responsibility for “herd immunity”.

!ALynne McTaggart

Afterwards, I went back to a friend’s flat. There were about 10 students there and, out of these, only one person had not become ill shortly after having the vaccine. Most had come down with severe flu symptoms, but one girl had collapsed outside her GP’s surgery.

Within an hour of having the vaccine, I began to feel strange and ‘spaced out’. Two hours later. I was told to go home, as my legs had gone weak and I was experiencing visual disturbances.

Two days later when I went to see my GP, I could hardly walk or speak.

I was unable to walk down the road without stopping. I felt nauseous and breathless, and was aware of a headache, heart palpitations, and a throbbing feeling inside.

My GP called an ambulance and sent me to casualty, where the doctor there called the manufacturers of the vaccine. They said there had been similar reports of side effects, but they expected these effects to go within days. The hospital told me to come back if I still felt the same in two weeks’ time.

I tried to continue my studies in November, but was only able to keep it up for two weeks. I have now had to leave the Conservatoire.

I still have the visual disturbances and lapses when I cannot communicate or walk properly. I get really tired and have no energy or concentration the classic signs of ME, I’m told, by an ME trust.

Sometimes get depressed because I thought it was a second chance for me when I was accepted at the Birmingham Conservatoire, and I really wanted to achieve my aspiration of being a professional orchestral cellist. It looks like this may not happen now. FL, Coventry…..

Calling all alternative professionals

Any suggestions for treatments which may be ofl help to FL?

Meanwhile, the PRP conjugate vaccine against the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in the US and Europe, has only been found to be 74 per cent effective. (The Lancet, 17 August 1991)

Another study showed that the higher the dose of Hib vaccine, the lower the immunity to the disease.

University authorities, parents and GPs were targeted; and, although the vaccine wasn’t actually compulsory, the edict like tone of the call to vaccination led some universities to refuse admission to unvaccinated students.

So successful was the campaign that GPs ran out of supplies. They appeared to be horrified. “Students lives are being put at risk,” they thundered. There were red faces at the DoH, as the press rounded on them for such a scandalous cock up. But that wasn’t the whole story.

What the press didn’t ask was: why the sudden vaccination drive in the first place? And, even from an orthodox medical standpoint, was it really necessary?

Had they looked at the Dept of Health’s own most recent publication on the subject, they would have read the following: “Routine immunisation with meningococcal (ie, meningitis) vaccine is not recommended, as the overall risk of meningococcal disease is very low” (Immunisation against Infectious Diseases, Dept of Health, 1996). In fact, the usual practice is to issue meningitis vaccine only if an outbreak occurs, and then only in the immediate local area. As a recent scientific paper on meningitis observed: “Vaccination against Neisseria meningitidis (the meningitis bacterium) is not part of routine immunisation schemes in any country; instead, targeted vaccination of groups at the highest risk is recommended during outbreaks and epidemics” (Epidemiol Infect, 1995; 115: 411-8).

But there was no epidemic in Britain this September when the mass meningitis vaccination was due to begin. So why the unprecedented urgency to routinely vaccinate students? The ostensible reason was that students are a particularly vulnerable group; and indeed, over the years, there have been occasional outbreaks in universities. But never before has routine vaccination been proposed. So, again, why the campaign and why now?

The meningitis vaccine being offered to students was first developed over 20 years ago and most experts frankly don’t think much of it. First, they say, it doesn’t work on the very young, who are most at risk of meningitis, and second its claimed protective effects are relatively short lived. So, over the last few years, drug companies have been racing to develop new genetically engineered vaccines that could be targeted at the very young, where a need was perceived to exist (or more crudely, where there was a hole in the market).

As it happens, clinical trials of these new vaccines were coming to an end this summer, and, although there were no published reports of the findings, the preliminary results had been shown to the Dept of Health. In fact, this time last year, David Salisbury, the DoH’s principal medical officer, had been crowing to the press about how “very exciting” the results of the trials were turning out to be (The Times, 9 September, 1998). As a result, soon afterwards, the DoH announced that they intended to bring forward their planned introduction of the new vaccines by a year, starting this October. So it was clear the writing was on the wall for the old vaccine and a year earlier than forecast.

This was the real background to the first nationwide meningitis vaccination campaign ever mounted by any Western country. The vaccine being offered to students was of course, you’ve guessed it the old obsolescent one. The timing was perfect. The infant vaccination programme was due to happen in September, so the students would mop up the last supplies of the old vaccine. A month later, the new vaccines would be rolled out but not for any students who might have missed out on the old one. “There are limited supplies of the new vaccines,” a DoH spokesman told me, “so they are not being be offered to students, but to two, three, and four month old babies who really need them.” Call me stupid, but wasn’t it the students who really needed them?

This appears to be a carbon copy of the other vaccination scare overseen by the DoH in 1994. Then, the DoH claimed there was about to be a measles epidemic, and wanted all schoolchildren to receive the MR vaccine in November 1994.

But Dr Richard Nicholson of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics has suggested that there was no evidence of a measles epidemic.

Certainly, it was convenient. Earlier stocks of the MMR vaccine, routinely given to 15 month old babies, were about to lose their sell by date.

Two versions of the vaccine had been taken off the market because of possible dangers of the mumps portion of the jab and, as luck would have it, the forecast of the epidemic occurred just before these vaccines were to be consigned to the rubbish heap. The manufacturers removed the controversial mumps portion, and the government had an instant supply of vaccine for a nationwide immunisation programme.

As if this weren’t bad enough, the latest evidence from their own experts shows for over half the potentially fatal cases of meningitis, the old vaccine doesn’t work and neither does the new one (Public Health Laboratory Service press statement, 1st October 1999).

!ATony Edwards

It’s a lesson that one South Vietnamese gentleman and his two sons had to learn the hard way. They were rushed to hospital suffering from fever, headaches and confusion, and eventually the father became comatose and rigid.

When finally the two sons recovered (the father is still bedridden, and is helped to perform basic daily activities), they told doctors that all three had been eating snails.

Raw snails are a delicacy in South Vietnam where they are often washed down with rice wine.

Unfortunately, the snails are a common cause of a form of meningitis, which occurs in Southeast Asia and the Pacific basin. Infection comes from eating the larvae in uncooked snails or slugs, freshwater prawns, frogs and fish, so sushi lovers should also beware.

As one of the doctors who treated the three said: ‘Those who partake rarely know the dangers of a raw snail supper.’ But you, dear readers, do.

(Source: The Lancet, 2003; 361: 1866).

By piggybacking C strain cells onto a proven entity, the idea, says Wyeth’s David Hall, is that the CRM cells put the body on red alert that it is under attack. Under this heightened situation, it is more likely then to recognise the polysaccharide cells as foreign and worthy of developing antibodies and memory cells, which help the body remember how to generate specific antibodies in the future if needed.At least that’s the theory. Nevertheless, numerous studies show substantial vaccine failure rates among the supposedly successful Hib conjugate vaccine. One study showed the protective effect of one conjugate Hib vaccine was only 74 per cent (Lancet, 1991; 338: 395-8), and only 35 per cent among Alaskan infants, who are at higher risk of Hib meningitis than other children.

Another study showed that 52 per cent of Hib meningitis cases occurred among vaccinated children (Pediatrics, 1995; 96: 424-7).

And has the Hib vaccine eliminated Hib meningitis? It’s true there’s been a drastic drop in cases. But that’s consistent with previously identified cyclic variation in this disease, with certain peaks and troughs in its incidence (JAMA, 1993; 269: 227-31).

Furthermore, the incidence has also fallen among babies who haven’t been vaccinated (Lancet, 1997; 349: 1197-1201). The supposed Hib vaccine success story could be nothing more than the cyclical downturn in a disease. It’s too early to tell.

For myself, my family and friends, I find vitamin C invaluable for any kind of infection. Unfortunately, for the general public, it’s now impossible to tell those who say “I tried vitamin C, but had to turn to drugs in the end” that they just didn’t take enough.

I’ve often wondered how many tragic children, losing limbs to meningitis, might have been saved by vitamin C – if only we had researched and taught what really works, rather than what makes profits. – Helen Jarvis, Derbyshire