MMR campaigner wins £90,000 payout
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010The mother of a teenage boy who developed severe brain damage following the MMR vaccine has won compensation from the government.
Robert Fletcher, from Warrington, who is now 18, had a fit ten days having the MMR vaccination when he was just 13 months old. Mother Jackie Fletcher had always believed that Robert’s epilepsy was triggered by the MMR vaccine.
A previous application for compensation from the government was turned down in 1997, but this decision was successfully appealed, and Mrs Fletcher has now been awarded £90,000 by a medical assessment panel. The family originally applied for medical compensation through the Government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.
Mrs Fletcher has been campaigning for justice for her son for the past 16 years. Robert now suffers with frequent epileptic fits, and cannot talk, stand unaided or feed himself. He is not autistic.
She said that she now felt vindicated because she had been labelled as simply being ‘anti-vaccine’ and a scaremonger, but she believed that all she had wanted was to highlight what had happened Robert, in order to safeguard other children.
She hoped that other parents whose children had experienced a similar reaction would consider going down the same route to achieve justice for their own children.
The jury, which consisted of a judge and two doctors, said the ruling had no relevance to the question of an alleged link between the MMR vaccine and autism. They were referring to the comments made by Dr Andrew Wakefield – lead author of a controversial study, published in The Lancet in 1998, suggesting that there was a possible link between MMR and autism and bowel disease.
The comments made in the study were picked up by the mainstream media and led to a huge furore which was blamed for a sharp drop in the number of children vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. The study has since been discredited and The Lancet has admitted that it should not have published it.
A Department of Health spokesperson said that this decision reflected the opinion of a tribunal on the facts of Robert’s case and they were clear that it should not be seen as a precedent for other cases. He added that the MMR’s safety had been endorsed by studies in many countries and that more parents were now choosing to take it up.
He added: “The World Health Organisation recognises MMR as being a ‘highly effective vaccine which has (such) an outstanding safety record’.
“Parents and carers should continue to get their children immunised when called to do so.”