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Japan stopped using
the MMR vaccine seven years ago.
Japan is virtually the only developed nation to turn
its back on the vaccine. Government health chiefs claim a four-year experiment
with it has had serious financial and human costs.
Of the 3,969 medical compensation claims relating
to vaccines in the last 30 years, a quarter had been made by those badly
affected by the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, they say.
The MMR was banned in Japan in 1993 after 1.8 million
children had been given two types of MMR and a record
number developed non-viral meningitis and other adverse reactions
were recorded.
Official figures show there were three deaths while
eight children were left with permanent handicaps ranging from damaged
hearing and blindness to loss of control of limbs.
The government reconsidered using MMR in 1999 but
decided it was safer to keep the ban and
continue using individual vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella.
The British Department of Health said Japan had used
a type of MMR, which included a strain of mumps vaccine that had particular
problems and was discontinued in the UK because of safety concerns.
The Japanese government realized there was a problem
with MMR soon after its introduction in April 1989 when vaccination was
compulsory. Parents who refused had to pay a small fine.
An analysis of vaccinations over a three-month period
showed one in every 900 children
was experiencing problems.
This was over 2,000
times higher than the expected rate
of one child in every 100,000 to 200,000.
The health ministry switched to another MMR vaccine
in October 1991 but the incidence was still high with one in 1,755 children
affected. No separate record has been kept of claims involving autism.
Tests on the spinal fluid of 125 children affected
were carried out to see if the vaccine had got into the children's nervous
systems. They found one confirmed case and two further suspected cases.
In 1993, after a public outcry fueled by worries over
the flu vaccine, the government dropped the requirement
for children to be vaccinated against measles or rubella.
Dr Hiroki Nakatani, director of the Infectious Disease
Division at Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare said that giving individual
vaccines cost twice as much as MMR 'but we believe it is worth it'.
In some areas parents have to pay, while in others
health authorities foot the bill.
However, he admitted the MMR scare
has left its mark. With vaccination rates low, there have been
measles outbreaks which have claimed 94 lives in the last five years.
femail.co.uk
February 6, 2001
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