Public health scientists in the UK are suffering a fate of one step forward, two back, in terms of the country's immunization program. Only days after announcing that the effort to wipe out cases of meningitis C with a new vaccine has proved to be the most successful immunization campaign for 40 years, government health officials were forced last month to counteract fresh media scares over the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in order to stop take-up levels dropping to an all-time low. In addition, supplies of the BCG tuberculosis vaccine have fallen so low that routine nationwide immunization has been stopped in all regions outside London.

Group C meningococcal infections have surpassed the more common group B infections in recent years in the UK. Thus, with the development of a new vaccine for the C strain, Britain became the first country in the world to introduce an immunization program against the infection in children and teenagers in November 1999. Figures show a drop of 90% in vaccinated cases under 1 year of age and a 75% drop in the 15–17 age group. Spain and Ireland are beginning similar programs.

However, a tabloid newspaper recently reported that a new study to be published by Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free Hospital in London will show the MMR vaccine to be unsafe.

This triggered a defensive press conference by the Department of Health (DoH) to announce that the Committee on the Safety of Medicines had re-reviewed the licensing data for the vaccine and confirmed its safety. David Salisbury, head of immunization at the DoH, told Nature Medicine, “. . .every review that has been undertaken has shown that this vaccine is safe and the reason for [our] announcement is the publicity that has been given to a still unpublished piece of work that is causing public anxiety.”

In 1998, Wakefield published data suggesting that MMR vaccination is linked to autism (Lancet, 351, 637; 1998). MMR rates fell from 93% to 87%. Wakefield also suggested that the vaccines should be given separately in intervals of one year. “We believe that is a program that is destined to put children at risk,” says Salisbury. “If you assume 10% of infants are delayed and you have the first immunization at age 1, the second at 2 and the third at 3, that means you've built up at least 150,000 susceptibles over two years.” Data from a large study in Finland supporting the safety of the MMR vaccine is published in a recent issue of the Pediatr. Infect. Dis. J. (19, 11271; 2000).