Melanie Phillips
Daily Mail, August 9
"After all the trouble with the MMR vaccine, you would think that the government would bend over backwards to prevent another crisis of confidence the next time it decided to introduce a new vaccine for children ... The five-in-one jab will renew fears about the possible dangers of compound vaccines ... Medical opinion is divided about whether compound vaccines pose any dangers or not ... How can parents have confidence that the new ... jab is totally safe - a claim which the government has made without yet bothering to produce the proof? ...
"Unless parents are given the choice of separate vaccines, there is every danger that more and more children will remain unvaccinated against more and more diseases - an entirely preventable disaster, for which the government would be entirely responsible."
Sun
Editorial, August 10
"The experts say the five-in-one jab for babies is safe. Those millions of us who do not have medical training have to take their word for it. But it would be much easier for parents to have their precious babies treated with confidence if there was a little more openness from politicians.
"The disquiet over the MMR triple jab has still not gone away ... [Tony Blair and Gordon Brown] claim that their children's medical treatment is a private matter. But that is a weak argument when weighed against the immense public good that could be achieved through leading by example."
Times
Editorial, August 10
"There is no sound reason to fear the new vaccination, and there are several reasons to welcome it. It will protect infants against diphtheria, tetanus and haemophilus influenza (Hib) as well as polio and whooping cough, and for all the legitimate concerns of thousands of parents who have lived - and worried - through successive MMR scares, it will carry no measurable risk of side-effects resulting from the fact of combining multiple vaccines ...
"Then, as now, parents were encouraged by misguided activists to believe that multiple vaccines constituted a slight but avoidable risk for their children. That risk, if it exists, should be weighed against the far more serious one of the wholesale return of deadly infections. The government must make this clear not with ad hoc press conferences but timely public education initiatives that address parents' concerns rather than ridicule them."
Daily Mirror
Editorial, August 10
"A new five-in-one vaccine for babies will worry some parents - and the public has every right to demand unbiased scientific information. But the scare stories surrounding MMR and the proposed new multiple injection are a cynical attempt to exploit parental worries.
"Despite extensive research into the links between MMR and autism involving hundreds of thousands of children, no connection has ever been found ... Parents are always right to be concerned, especially when it comes to vaccines ... But it is time to stop the scaremongering over MMR and other multiple vaccines - and to let the facts speak for themselves."
Melanie McDonagh
Daily Telegraph, August 10
"Now, years late, the government says that there's absolutely no need to panic, but that thiomersal [a mercury-containing preservative] is to be phased out from October in all vaccines ... The stampede of senior NHS executives to assure us that the existing vaccines are completely safe does nothing to make you feel reassured."
Scotsman
Editorial, August 10
"What, then, are parents to make of ... a new five-in-one vaccine for every child? The government would have us believe that the elimination of mercury is nothing more than a happy accident, and certainly not the reason for the change ... For the government to have admitted doubts about thiomersal ... now would be to call into question the decision to defend [its] use in the past. No doubt, such a course would have exposed ministers and officials to anger from the public and the press. It would also have allowed a better-informed, more mature debate about the issues involved in child vaccination ...
"More honesty would make people more inclined to listen when ministers make perfectly valid arguments about the importance of universal vaccination. It might also help restore the public trust Labour has done so much to jeopardise."
Deborah Orr
Independent, August 10
"The choice that people prate about in the immunisation debate is a trivial choice. The great battleground is reckoned to be persuading the NHS to waive its cost considerations and offer the children of Britain individual vaccinations if they want them. I doubt there is the staff for this, let alone the money. But never mind. In order to force this choice, those who are boycotting the immunisation programme may push matters to a crisis which will remind them of what their choice really is ...
"People will be reminded of just what a frivolous luxury it is to refuse immunisation. The awful thing is that with vaccination take-up falling at the rate it is, an epidemic is the only thing that will puncture our strange brand of hysterical complacency around this matter."
