BMJ  2004;328:50-51 (3 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7430.50-b

Letter

Review of Hear the Silence

Confusion has resulted from conflating two questions into one

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Much of the confusion about measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism is caused by the conflation of two questions into one. This is exemplified in the responses from parents with affected children to the reviews of Hear the Silence^1-4 and a little in the response from the editor of the Lancet.⁵

As things stand, anyone who has doubts on giving their child measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine should have the same doubts on giving their child measles vaccine alone, as a single vaccine. Parents who fear MMR are generally willing to give single measles vaccine because they know that any risk of that vaccine is outweighed by the risk of measles, a condition that makes children much sicker than modern parents find tolerable even when it is uncomplicated, and that kills or maims them when it is complicated.

Presumably the risk parents tolerate on behalf . . . [Full text of this article]

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, London WC1N 3JH edcooper@doctors.org.uk

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