Product Description

In MMR and Autism Michael Fitzpatrick explains why he believes the anti-MMR campaign is misguided, in a way that will reassure parents considering vaccination and also relieve the anxieties of parents of autistic children.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #395508 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Brent Taylor, Professor of Community Child Health, Royal Free and University College Medical School
'Every health worker parent, politician and journalist concerned with these issues must read this brilliant book.'

Review
'Michael Fitzpatrick splendidly demolishes the argument that MMR causes autism by careful review of the scientific and other evidence. He also provides an insightful review of autism and its management, together with the role of risk aversion in health scares like the MMR. Every health worker, parent, politician and journalist concerned with these issues must read this brilliant book.' - Brent Taylor, Professor of Community Child Health, Royal Free and University College Medical School

'Michael Fitzpatrick splendidly demolishes the argument that MMR causes autism by careful review of the scientific and other evidence. He also provides an insightful review of autism and its management, together with the role of risk aversion in health scares like the MMR. Every health worker, parent, politician and journalist concerned with these issues must read this brilliant book.' - Brent Taylor, Professor of Community Child Health, Royal Free and University College Medical School

'Fitzpatrick ... offers a profound and wide-ranging account including politics, philosophy and rationality, science and medicine, the media, the medics, history and autism itself from both sides of the fence and indeed the fence itself. Erudite without obscurity, economical without dryness, I found his book a gripping read - and so did my wife, a non medic.' - Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

'This book is a tour de force. Extensively researched and impeccably argued.' - Health Watch

'Dr Fitzpatrick's book on the MMR affair goes well beyond the affair itself, and casts a searchlight on our society, indeed on our soul.' - Dr Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph

'Michael Fitzpatrick is a general practitioner and also the parent of a child with autism. Fortunately he is also a very good writer and has produced a readable, well-discussed book about the MMR-autism saga. The book is informative, detailed, and accurate.' - International Journal of Epidemiology

From the Back Cover
The MMR controversy has been characterized by two one-sided discourses. In the medical world, the weight of opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of MMR. In the public world, the anti-MMR campaign has a much greater influence, centred on the fears of parents that the triple vaccine may cause autism in their children. Both professionals and parents struggle to cope with the anxieties this creates, but find it difficult to find a balanced account of the issues.

In MMR and Autism Michael Fitzpatrick, a general practitioner who is also the parent of an autistic child, explains why he believes the anti-MMR campaign is misguided in a way that will reassure parents considering vaccination and also relieve the anxieties of parents of autistic children. At the same time, this informative book provides health care professionals and health studies students with an accessible overview of a contemporary health issue with significant policy implications.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive review of how autism and MMR became linked
This is a very important book, which really does live up to its title, it does contain what 'every parent need to know '. In fact it contains a great deal more that they need to know and is arguably the most comprehensive and reliable discussion of the subject there, is as well as providing a useful summary of ideas about autism. ( Fitzpatrick himself is the father of an autistic child). Some may find the level of detail a bit overwhelming , but only by tracing it chronologically is it possible to grasp how the story developed and the peculiar way in which new claims have been added and others quietly dropped as they proved unsustainable even to Andrew Wakefield, the originator of the idea that autism and MMR were linked.

Fitzpatrick does not dismiss the views of those who claims a link between MMR and autisms out of hand but systematically goes through all their claims and shows how they just don't stand up to any rational analysis by which we make judgments and decisions about issues in normal life.

Yet it's remarkable how widespread these views now are, working in a hospital, I'm still amazed at the number of people who've smugly told me that there must be something in the link with autism but the advantages of the MMR vaccine outweigh the risks of not having it; well, this book shows quite clearly that there isn't anything in the link and it's not a question of balancing two opposing points of view.

In fact, the medical and political establishment doesn't come out of this story very well either and Fitzpatrick is right to point out their shortcomings. From the initial decision of the editor of the Lancet to publish what he considered at the time to be a poor paper (and launch it with a televised press conference) to Tony Blair, who gave the story a new lease of life by refusing to say whether his young son had been vaccinated, to the Department of Health and its experts, who have done their share of scare mongering with dire threats of impending epidemics yet who weren't even prepared to defend their point of view in the televised discussion after the drama 'Hear the silence' about Andrew Wakefield was screened on Channel 5. It's also amazing to note how many journalists have boosted their careers by latching on to this scare whenever it's flagged.

It may be that this particular story is now over, Andrew Wakefield has adopted an increasingly martyred posture, leaving a small group of followers to do his arguing for him, but it is still an important issue and you can be sure that there will be another issue along which will cause another panic. There are many lessons to be learnt from it and it is in this context that the epilogue to the book is particularly useful. It ranges from practical suggestions to fellow GP's on how to put a positive case for MMR without scaring worried patients, to a more general and thought provoking section on medicine and scientific research in an increasingly irrational and anxious age.

The fake MMR scare - why its still important
We live at a time when our children no longer die of smallpox and are not encased in iron lungs because of polio infection. Vaccination is one of the main reasons why our children are safer from infectious disease than ever before. Oddly, we also live in a time where many well-meaning people (along with many more cranks and quacks) try to deny the fact that vaccinations are effective. These people are busy creating fake safety issues to put people off having their children vaccinated, opening the way for children to be harmed needlessly by easily preventable disease. Vague hints that governments and pharmaceutical companies are deliberately causing damage to children for profit usually accompany these paranoid fantasies, witness a review here. Oddly, the anti-vaccine quacks who offer their own dubious services for cash have no such financial motivation in the eyes of their faithful followers.

In this book Michael Fitzpatrick, a father of an autistic child and a GP, cuts through the fake hysteria surrounding MMR to show why no scare should have started in the first place. Fitzpatrick shows that the MMR-autism link is not supported by epidemiology and has no credible, reproducible lab evidence that could provide a mechanism.

The fake MMR scare now, thankfully, appears to be fading as the media loses interest under the weight of more and more studies showing no link to autism, however, this book remains important. The lessons of the MMR fiasco need to be learnt by the government and the media so the next time a “medical maverick” questions established and effective therapies the correct questions are asked before an unnecessary panic is created.

Interestingly, following the point about profit mentioned earlier, Fitzpatrick also points out that the "medical research" that first linked MMR to autism was produced using public funding (from Legal Aid) at the request of a legal firm with an interest in starting litigation. We the public funded this baseless research to the tune of £15 million and yet the findings are yet to be disclosed or published. That this public money was wasted in this way is the only remaining MMR scandal and yet nobody is being held accountable.

Excellent study of autism and the MMR scare
This superb book gives an extremely useful account of the current state of knowledge of autism and its causes. It also shows that parents should allow their children to be immunised with MMR. The author is a London GP, who has an autistic son James.

Dr Fitzpatrick reminds us of the dangers of measles, mumps and rubella. In the ten years before the first measles immunisation was introduced in Britain, 850 children died from measles. Since MMR immunisation was introduced in 1988, there have been only four deaths from measles, and 19 from complications. Japan, with a low uptake of MMR immunisation, has 50/100 measles deaths a year.

So the government is right to encourage mass MMR immunisation and to oppose the individual choice of separate vaccines, even though its promotion of 'individual choice' and 'personalised care' undermines all good NHS policies. The government's 'faith-based' politics - evident in Blair's refusal to say whether his son Leo had been immunised - align it against both the medical profession and scientific evidence.

The original article that sparked the MMR immunisation scare, by Dr Andrew Wakefield, only raised the possibility of a relationship between MMR immunisation and autism: it put forward no evidence of a causal link, and specified no mechanism of transmission. In the subsequent five years, he has failed to substantiate his claim.

Since then, many independent researchers have proven that there is no causal link between MMR and autism, but Dr Wakefield refuses to accept the overwhelming evidence. He even told a US senate committee that the Royal Statistical Society had damned an important study that refuted his hypothesis, although this was not true. He has now moved to a private clinic in Florida run by an evangelical Christian.

We still know too little about the neurobiological framework of autism. The one thing we do know is that whatever else causes autism, it is not MMR immunisation. The facts show that MMR vaccine is safe, and that immunisation does not compromise natural immunity.