IN MY VIEW... MMR JAB SHOULD BE CELEBRATED, NOT SHUNNED

ONE Sunday evening 50 years ago, as a 19-year-old, I crouched in front of our small black-andwhite TV set to photograph the quite incredible images of man walking on the Moon.

This month’s celebrations of the Moon landing brought to mind those pictures, and also made me think of the astonishing advances in medical technology I’ve had the fortune to witness.

Advances in scanning — from ultrasounds, to CT scans and MRIs — have revolutionised diagnosis.

Coronary artery bypass surgery freed countless patients from the pain of angina (one of mine was only the 23rd in the world to benefit), while the development of keyhole surgery has aided plenty more.

We saw the arrival of the first effective drug for stomach ulcers (cimetidine) and the first successful antiviral agent (acyclovir for cold sores and shingles). We’ve gone from sequencing the human genome to attempting to rewrite DNA to fight disease.

And, today, research into our gut bacteria is opening the possibility of new treatments for everything from obesity to Alzheimer’s.

There’s no doubt that the doctors of my generation, and our patients, have lived through a golden era.

Yet we must not be complacent: measles is back with a vengeance. This common viral infection that has no known treatment can cause deafness and brain damage and may even be fatal.

Science has given us a safe vaccine in the form of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab — yet, by virtue of human nature, ‘fake news’ and misinformation, some parents are not having their children immunised. The vaccine is an advance, like others, to be celebrated, not shunned.