MMR enforcement is `medical dictatorship'

Forcing parents to have their children vaccinated with the MMR vaccine is a form of "medical dictatorship", according to the Association of GPs.

Dr Mary Grehan, founder and spokeswoman of the organisation which represents the interests of over 630 GPs in the State, says she would gladly administer separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella instead of the MMR if they were available here.

The Dundalk GP said "the jury's out" on whether the MMR was safe, but added it was wrong that GPs should be put in a position where they could not offer separate vaccines.

She says she had seen adverse reactions, including one boy who had become autistic. "His parents are convinced that the child became autistic as a result of the MMR vaccine."

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children last month rejected the possibility of a link between MMR and autism, though the Hope Project, a lobbying group for people with autism, rejects its findings. Chaired by Ms Kathryn Sinnott, it called the report "an insult to parents".

"As good, loving and trusting parents we brought our children for immunisation and witnessed the suffering and autistic regression that followed," she said.

"We do not want to stop immunisation but to stop the indiscriminate immunisation of children at risk of adverse reaction."

She said the Project did not want another report. "We want action."