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Measles Virus Is Found In Boy's Brain After
MMR
by Lorraine Fraser,
The Telegraph (UK)
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A child who developed severe epilepsy after receiving the MMR
jab has been found to have measles
virus from the vaccine in his brain.
The results of tests conducted recently have been
revealed by the 13-year-old
boy's mother. She says that she has decided to go
public in order to push the
Government to take the plight of
children allegedly damaged by the
three-in-one measles, mumps and rubella vaccination more
seriously.
Scientists say that the implications of the
discovery are difficult to assess
without further research. However,
it raises new questions about the
triple inoculation, which has been dogged by controversy since
Andrew Wakefield, a former
consultant at the Royal Free Hospital in London, linked
it with a new syndrome of bowel
disease and autism in children.
The boy's mother, who has asked to remain
anonymous, told The Telegraph
yesterday that her son had developed
an allergic rash eight days after he
received the MMR vaccination when he was 15 months old. He
then progressed to have 10 to
12 seizures every month.
In the summer of 1998, however, he descended
into "status epilepticus" -
continuous convulsions - and
surgeons at a London hospital
decided that he needed emergency brain surgery to save his
life. It was at this
point that a brain biopsy was taken.
The woman, who is suing the manufacturers of
the MMR vaccine on behalf of her
son, declined to say where the
biopsy had been tested for the measles
virus but indicated that this had been done in a
reputable laboratory.
She had been shocked to receive the test results
indicating that vaccine-strain
measles virus had been found, she
said. She had also learnt that
samples from her son's bowel, taken in 1997 because he had
digestive problems, had
tested positive for vaccine-strain virus.
After the operation when he was nine, her
son had had to relearn
"virtually everything", she said. His personality changed and
he was no longer able to
attend mainstream school, although he had very recently
been free of seizures.
"Now with this new information I am very
concerned," the boy's mother said.
"Is it over for him or not? No one
knows and this is why all these
children - not just my son - need to be acknowledged rather
than have the
continuous stream of blanket denials that have been
issued by the Department of Health."
British specialists investigating MMR were
reluctant to comment publicly on the
case last night. One cautioned that
it was theoretically possible that
the boy had developed a vaccine-related condition that was
more commonly caused by a
natural measles virus infection. If
this was the case, he said, then MMR would
actually help to protect the
wider population from similar infections. However, he added:
"We do not know
what this result means."
The Department of Health has told parents they
have no need to be concerned about
MMR - a position supported by
leading medical bodies worldwide.
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