Success of fight for MMR jab rethink

A Telford mother campaigning for a rethink on giving children the controversial MMR jab has described her latest protest as "very successful".

Allison Edwards, of Muxton Lane, Muxton, yesterday led 100 campaigners at a protest outside a General Medical Council (GMC) hearing in London.

She led supporters of Dr Andrew Wakefield who, together with two other doctors, faces being struck off for professional misconduct at a reconvened hearing expected to last four months.

Mrs Edwards, 44, insists the MMR jab is responsible for her 10-year-old son Jonathon's autism after he was given the injection aged 14 months.

The mum-of-two said: "Reports in the media are beginning to say what we believe, which is that some people have been trying their hardest to discredit Dr Wakefield.

"We support him because he merely sought to flag up warnings about the safety of the MMR vaccine.

"I know what happened to my son and I want doctors to be allowed to continue looking into this vaccine without fear of being hauled before the GMC.

"Parents have not been listened to and children should not be the sacrificial lambs in all this because they are what counts, not Government policy."

She added that her campaign would welcome a return to offering three separate jabs instead of one MMR vaccine, but that because patents have expired she believes it can never be achieved.