So can you tell me what you based those, that decision on?

I think it, well, several factors really. One, I knew I wanted them to be immunised. It was a case of, ‘How? Would, would it be a split vaccine or would it be the triple vaccine?’ So I, you know, there was always the, there was never a decision to make whether she was going to have them or not. And then secondly, I spoke to GP, my GP, the nurse, you know, who were, well, health professionals and again they gave me the relevant literature. I didn’t do any extra research on the Internet or anything like that; I just took the NHS leaflets. But I think as far as I was concerned, having taught children with autism and that was obviously the main fear, and I had been on professional courses as part of my job. I already had some insight into autism and the causes of autism and I was clear in my mind that the vaccine had nothing to do with it. And that’s why I prompted, I, it prompted me to go for the triple vaccine.

The issue later on about MMR was not a difficult one really. I suppose a sort of political conviction about public health and the need to be part of collective good health and obviously our own children. Not to say I wouldn’t, you know, I care obviously about my own children’s health. And also having felt as though the main proponent of some of the difficulties with MMR and autism etc was actually the institution which he worked for, which I understand was the Royal College or maybe not, no, maybe a central London hospital anyway, that had very, very significant links with a producer of an alternative set of immunisation possibilities. So I felt as though there was kind of insider dealing and it was all very dodgy that kind of research.

Well, I’m not sure that I, there was really a decision to make. I didn’t really waver for very long because I think I just believe that vaccinations are a good thing and that the risks of not having a child vaccinated vastly outweigh the risks of anything that might occur from the vaccination. And I think that in everything you do in life carries a certain risk and you’ve got to live with that really, you can’t expect everything you do to be risk free.

Again, I think with MMR, just because of all the publicity I was bit more apprehensive about that. But even then I didn’t really do much reading because, I think because I’d come from a research background and I know theres actually no that, you know, there are contradictory studies on everything and you’ve got to take the sort of weight of evidence and the weight of evidence is towards it being safe. And so theres this one very highly publicised study that was claiming these links but, but everything else suggested that it was absolutely fine. And for me the risk of a link with, of him contracting autism was so much smaller than him contracting mumps and him suffering sort of negative impact from that. So it wasn’t too difficult a decision.

I think I’m quite lucky at having access to research papers and if I read something in a sort of much more, I don’t know, reliable, if that’s fair, source, then I would be more worried. But even then studies are funded but, I mean, that’s what, that’s what swung it for me about the MMR was that this guy had a, a serious conflict of interest. You know, he was representing the parents of children with autism and you can see how it happens. Somebody stakes their career on a certain, making a certain point and they get a certain reputation and they can’t really back down. So, I think knowing that, knowing that background, that piece of information in itself was enough for me to really dismiss, I think [laughs]. Although I mean it’s funny because you have a rational head and then you have your sort of mother head on and so it’s not that I got him immunised and didn’t worry about it. It was still, I was still looking for signs of [laughs] withdrawing from the world and not wanting affection enough to, which is ridiculous, I knew it was ridiculous but you still sort of do that, you still kind of watch afterward to see if, if hes changed. But there was absolutely no sign of that.

So I then spent time looking for clinics who would immunise, and I found one that seemed a possibility. The cost was phenomenal. I think it was about ‘150 per injection. And then it, because of the time we wanted to have it done, then there was a shortage of the mumps vaccine, so we wouldn’t be able to have that anyhow. So it seemed, you know, when I found that out, then for a few weeks we toyed with the idea that it would probably be best to give him the individual vaccinations.

But, to be honest, going to a clinic seemed a bit seedy in the end. You know, it seemed to be like putting these things into my child and, and we had to go through the back door to get it. And it, I didn’t feel like I wanted to do that. So I suppose the chat to the friend in America was, kind of was my green light. We were moving more towards the MMR because the clinics were so difficult to, not just to access, but then it was no problem to pay the money, but it just seemed like a ludicrous amount of money for individual injections. And they seemed to be cashing in on my concerns.

I investigated it. What, I mean what I found slightly annoying was I mean you couldn’t, you couldn’t do it. But I did feel that you ought to have the option through your GP. You ought to have to pay for it extra if it was costing more. But I probably would, had it been available to my GP, I probably would just at the time. I don’t know that I would, I don’t think I would with the next one. But I think I would at the time possibly have, have sort of paid for it, the extra, whatever the extra was, you know, through the GP. But the whole idea of going private, I was never, you know, sort of particularly comfortable with doing, doing that, without there being any hard evidence that it was necessarily going to be more beneficial or safer or whatever else.

Because theres always people who are willing to exploit it in that degree. And equally there were articles about how, you know, having single jabs didn’t necessarily provide the protection that the children needed, and, you know, there were, it wasn’t conclusive that, that was going to be a kind of good way forward. And I didn’t, I, it sort of wasn’t, in a way wasn’t really the issue for me. The issue was whether it was safe or not safe. And I just wanted to, you know, sort of make sure that I was fully reassured that I felt that it was statistically going to be, you know, overwhelmingly okay at the end of it, although you can never rule anything out altogether. But I mean all of life and you know, health is, is, you know, kind of best-fit scenario. So you just have to kind of take what you can with it.

The only immunisation that we really had to think long and hard about was the MMR, because there was quite a lot of controversy about at the time when he had his first MMR. And basically what I did was listen to a lot of other parents, who all had various views on it, and there was also a lot in the press at the time, on the television, in the papers, and listened to that and, you know, read up on that. And we basically understood that if he were to have the three separate jabs, there would be quite a large time lapse between the times that hed be allowed to have each of the three, during which time he would be at risk of contracting one of the three, or rather the, you know, the second two, the mumps and the rubella, if he had the measles first. And there was I think measles and mumps going round in our area at the time. And we basically took the decision to have the, the single jab for him so that he wasn’t at risk to catching either of those. And that’s really how we made our decision. And he didn’t have any reaction to it at all. And then he had his booster three months or so after the first jab. And because he was fine with those jabs we then proceeded to do the same with our other two sons, who have both subsequently been absolutely fine, haven’t had any adverse reactions at all to the jab.

I spoke with the health visitors and the nurses and the doctors at the medical centre and they gave us leaflets. And also there was an advert on the telly that the government did not so long back which sort of made me think as well. And also in the news there had been reports of a measles epidemic at, at Christmas time and so that made me more aware that, that something had to, or a decision had to come one way or the other. The decision for me was not to have her immunised or not, it was the way that, that we chose to do it, whether in the triple vaccine or, or single vaccinations and the single vaccinations worried me because I couldn’t be assured of where they’d come from or how they’d been stored and, and, and also friends of ours that have had the single vaccine they were the last set of parents that were able to have the mumps vaccines because then the supplies had run out and so I didn’t like the fact that here, I would only be able to have measles and rubella and, and you know well just have to forego mumps, so that sort of discounted the single vaccines.

The way I went about thinking about immunisation was, the thing is I work in the Child Health department, putting in information on children anyway. So I’ve got that background anyway. And I’ve got some leaflets from the health visitors and GPs about all the immunisations and the causes of not having it. So I made that decisions that I would want my daughter to have the immunisations for, to protect her from any illnesses.

I think it’s really important to have all the immunisations because it’s protecting your child from other illnesses. Because I mean I couldn’t forgive myself if anything was to happen, and as a parent I would want to protect my baby as well as I can. And so there, there are vaccinations available, so that’s why I took the opportunity to, for my child to be immunised.

And did you discuss it with anybody? Apart from the leaflets that you got from your GP and here?

Well, there was a lot of people saying about the MMR, like friends and family saying that autism and, but, and then you get leaflets as well and it says it’s not really linked to it. But it’s just, you just have to make that decision as a parent. Because at the end of the day what happens is, what’s going to happen is, is going to happen. You can’t really stop anything. But if I can, you know, help my baby to be more protected, then I’ll do my best. So I’ll know I tried.

Basically now that I’ve had them done, it’s years ago now, I mean [daughter’s name], my younger daughter, she still has to have her booster MMR in a year or so’s time, but I don’t feel worried about that. I will have her done, I don’t have any worries. I’ve experienced with my older daughter that she was absolutely fine and, and my younger daughter’s had the first lot and I, and was fine. I’ve got no worries about that. But basically now that they’re both done, whenever anybody talks about immunisation and the issues surrounding immunisation, you know, I’m very relieved that I’ve had it done. And when they worry on the television particularly about outbreaks of all these childhood diseases, measles, mumps, rubella, the lot I just feel, ‘Well, that doesn’t concern me. My children are safe. I’ve got, I’ve got nothing to worry about because I made the decision and they’re protected. It’s other people who haven’t had their children immunised who have got future concerns. I’ve, I had initial concerns and I, and I made the decision and I had, you know, worries while I was doing it. But now that’s it. I’m free from those sort of anxieties because I’ve done that, I’ve made the, the right step for us.

I would then worry about her being at nursery and swimming pools and ball parks and, you know, theres a lot of places where you come into a lot of contact with a lot of other children that, who you’ve no idea what, you know, what they may be catching from them. And I do feel that, at least I don’t, when shes in those situations I just don’t worry about the kind of more serious things. Because you’re worried about her falling over and breaking her leg, not about her catching those sort of things. And I think it’s a huge reassurance from that. I would be a lot more tense permanently. So although it was horrible at the time thinking, ‘Ahh, I’m about to damage her permanently’ at least now that shes, you know, sort of okay there are a lot of other things I now don’t have to worry about as a consequence. So on balance because shes okay, I wouldn’t be saying it at all if the, you know, obviously if the outcome had been any different, it, you know, I’ve now got a life basically where I’m not having to kind of be overly concerned every day of the week about her coming into contact with other children, which inevitably shes going to do. And shes been in full-time nursery from quite a young age, so it was even more important that she, you know, had some sort of protection against other things that she might come into contact with.