Japan's Experience with MMR
MESSAGE ON MMR FROM JAPAN Japan stops vacinnations on children until they are 24 months of age, after complaints from the public. This is in the hopes it will prevent autism. These are the stories of that action of prevention.
The following is a transcript of a news item broadcast on Channel 4 News on 31st January 2001 presented
from Osaka by Ian
Williams.
The scene opens with a film of parents and their child looking at a photograph album.
IAN WILLIAMS: "The reality of their terrible loss emerges. They had a son and when he was twenty-one
months old they took him
for an MMR vaccination. (Close up of photo of unconscious infant with nasogastric tube in situ.) Two
days later he was in a coma
from which he never recovered. That was eight years ago and still the family is fighting for proper
compensation from the
Japanese government."
KAYOKO KINOSHITA (Mother) "We are the victims, not only of the vaccine, but of a failure
to make proper information about
possible side effects available to us. It fills me with resentment and anger." Film moves to nursery
school where children are
being served food and eating lunch.
IAN WILLIAMS: "Nursery schools used to help organise mass vaccinations and for four years, from
1989, MMR was
recommended by the authorites until, that is, the evidence of side effects could no longer be ignored.
More than anybody else it
was Shunsuke Fuji who battled to extract and then publish information from Japan's secretive and high-handed
bureaucrats".
Shot of book-lined untidy office in the Osaka Inoculation Information Centre. Shunsuke Fuji walks in
and picks up the ringing
telephone, listens, then says:
SHUNSUKE FUJI: "If your child's already two, even catching measles wouldn't be so serious, so why
bother with an inoculation?"
IAN WILLIAMS: "The authorites eventually admitted that more than 1000 people suffered side effects
from MMR, mostly
meningitis. Three died before the drug was withdrawn in 1993."
SHUNSUKE FUJI: "They began using MMR in April 1989 and by July doctors were already warning of
side effects, but the
government didn't take any notice because it wasn't convenient for them. They kept using it for another
three years, securing the
profits for the manufacturers." Film moves to childrens' playground and children playing.
IAN WILLIAMS: "The problem was pinned on the mumps component of the inoculation which was changed
and which is not used
in Britain. But the damage had been done by the vaccine and by the government's sloppy response. Parents
no longer trust any
MMR so doctors in Japan now give separate measles injections to children between the ages of one and
six years old. It is given
as a single shot; no boosters are necessary. They do accept that Japan's rate of measles is high - 4500
cases and 69 deaths
between 1994 and 1998 but doctors here claim it was high even when MMR was used and they strongly reject
British criticism of
the single vaccine." Shot of clinic at Osaka Red Cross Hospital with Doctor Hideheko Yamomoto drawing
up a syringe of clear
liquid.
DR YAMOMOTO: "The reason there are more measles cases here compared with other countries is not
that we use the single
measles inoculation but because we only give it after the child is one year old. That is the problem.
The measles cases usually
originate in children under one year and spread from them, so we should really think about giving the
jabs earlier." Change of
scene to childrens' playground. Little girl on swing being pushed by father.
IAN WILLIAMS: "Not only has Japan abandoned MMR in favour of the single measles shot, but this
has had a wider impact. Such
is public disillusion with what's seen as dishonest, bungling bureaucrats that it has undermined public
confidence in vaccination.
When Mayu (close up of little girl on swing) was born six years ago, her parents were wary of all vaccines.
They insisted on an
allergy test before a measles jab. This proved positive. A full inoculation might have killed their
daughter. Last year, though, Mayu
contracted a serious dose of measles. Thankfully, she fully recovered. Her parents' opinions have hardened:
like a growing
number of Japanese they would rather risk illness than vaccines."
TOMOKO KITAKATA: "I have a distrust and fear about putting dangerous things into my body. I also
doubt whether the answers
from the government are true - or even from doctors - because they all say something different. We have
to make our own choice."
IAN WILLIAMS: "Like everywhere, the overwhelming concern of parents here is the health of their
children. But Japanese
experience with vaccines and the response of the authorities has hardly inspired confidence." END
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