PM tells parents: Ignore web mumbo-jumbo and give children measles jab
BORIS Johnson yesterday urged parents to ignore internet ‘mumbo-jumbo’ and get their children vaccinated.
It came as health officials revealed that one in seven children due to start primary school this autumn are not fully protected against measles – and the figure rises to one in four in London.
Experts have warned of the ‘disastrous’ consequences of plummeting vaccination rates, fuelled by myths spread on social media.
Speaking at a hospital in Cornwall, the Prime Minister said: ‘ I’m afraid people have been listening to superstitious mumbo-jumbo on the internet and thinking that the MMR vaccine is a bad idea. That’s wrong, please get your kids vaccinated.’
The number of measles cases has quadrupled in the past 12 months and the World Health Organisation has revoked Britain’s measles-free status.
Public Health England says the life- threatening disease could spread when children return to school.
Children need two vaccinations to fully protect against the disease. The uptake rate for the first is 92 per cent, but it falls to 87 per cent for the second.
Around 90,000 five-year- olds in England have not received their second dose of the MMR vaccine, and 30,000 have not received the first. One in eight have not had the diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and polio booster, meaning those diseases could return.
Yesterday the Daily Mail uncovered a trove of shocking anti-vaccine material on Facebook and Instagram. Dozens of accounts promise to reveal the ‘truth’ about vaccinations but instead post misinformation linking immunisations to autism, cancer and death.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘We are still suffering from the now entirely debunked MMR scandal of the nineties, and it is potentially disastrous that so many young people are now susceptible to serious, often life-threatening infectious diseases.’
More than three quarters of parents think unvaccinated children should be banned from school. A Mumsnet survey found that 77 per cent think vaccines should be compulsory.