Sir, Public debate is healthy and disputation of accepted dogma a democratic right. But Dr Gascoigne (January 23rd) is so mistaken, misinformed and out of step regarding immunisation that his opinions must be refuted.1 1996 is the 200th anniversary of Jenner's discovery of smallpox vaccine. Jenner was, in his time, ridiculed. However, Thomas Jefferson (US President) wrote to Jenner in 1815 predicting that the future generations would appreciate his extirpation of smallpox.
He was proved right in the 1980s when smallpox was declared eradicated.
A few quotations may serve to, negate Dr Gascoigne's anti vaccine stance. "No child should be denied immunisation without serious thought as to the consequences for the individual child and the community" (WHO, 1984) "Never in the history of human progress has a better and cheaper method of preventing illness been developed than immunisation at best" (Jeffrey Edsall) "Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism" (Samuel Butler, 1835-1902).
Vaccination is in fact a form of homeopathy for a very mild form of the disease is given to the child in order to induce long term protection. The evidence to date is that protection is preserved from between 10 to 20 years and longer.
WHO actively promotes immunisation. UNICEF supports immunisation programmes all round the world which have been highly successful. The American Academy of Paediatrics is an active proponent of high uptakes in the United States. The British Paediatric Association, the Faculty of Paediatrics of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland band Confederation of European Specialists in Paediatrics, all actively promote childhood immunisation.
All of these scientific bodies have carefully evaluated the evidence and uniformly and unanimously concluded that vaccination has been a major health advance for children.
WHO in fact has set a target for the global eradication of polio myelitis by the year 2000. Albert Sabin, one of the pioneers and scientists of immunisation, wrote an article in Paediatrics in 1992 entitled "My last will and testament on elimination and ultimate global eradication of polio myelitis and measles".
If less than 60 per cent of children are immunised, outbreaks and epidemics of the relevant diseases, namely, polio, measles, etc., will occur. I personally have not seen, in 25 years of paediatric practice, a new case of polio in a child and hope that it can remain in the text books.
The fact is, Dr Gascoigne, that measles, polio and diphtheria germs have not died children have died from them. These germs would love a susceptible pool of children. Immunisation has effectively eliminated them from our society. Let's keep it that way. We have no specific treatment for polio, measles, mumps or rubella.
Finally, I would urge Dr Gascoigne to read an article in the British Medical Journal, December 1994 entitled "Myths in Medicine Immunisation". The myths that Dr Gascoigne believes and propounds are clearly refuted in this article. Yours, etc., Professor of Paediatrics, Department of Paediatrics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2.