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Whooping-Cough Vaccination

Volume 928: debated on Tuesday 22 March 1977

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asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what proportion of children vaccinated against whooping-cough were vaccinated (a) by their own general practitioner in his or her surgery, (b) by their own general practitioner at a health clinic, or (c) by someone other than their own general practitioner for each of the last five years.

The information requested is not available from information collected centrally.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give details of the amendments in the advice given to doctors about checking the medical history of children prior to their being vaccinated against whooping cough in the last 12 months, and in the previous five years.

The advice given to doctors about contra-indications to whooping-cough vaccination was revised and included in the July 1972 edition of the booklet "Immunisation against Infectious Disease", copies of which were placed in the Library following my right hon. Friend's statement in reply to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) on 8th February.—[Vol. 925, c. 1227–30.] Doctors were reminded of this advice in the Chief Medical Officer's letter of 11th June 1974. A letter is shortly to be sent to doctors on contra-indications. I will send a copy to the hon. Member.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied that the standard procedures followed by doctors, and clinical staff in ascertaining the medical history of children prior to their being vaccinated against whooping cough, is fully adequate to prevent vaccinations being administered to children with medical histories, or from families with medical histories that might be deduced, in the light of current medical knowledge, to be susceptible to harmful side-effects from the vaccination.

This is a clinical matter for the medical and nursing professions. Information about contra-indications to vaccination is included in the booklet "Immunisation against Infectious Disease" and in letters to doctors from the Chief Medical Officer.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will take steps to discover approximately how many doctors disagree with or ignore the advice of the chief medical officer of health on contra-indications to whooping-cough vaccine.

This is a matter of clinical judgment and responsibility and not one in which my right hon. Friend could intervene.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many research studies into whooping-cough vaccine have been commissioned by the joint committee in the past five years; in how many cases the reasearchers have not published their results; and in these circumstances how often the Department has provided a summary of the findings to health or social service authorities.

The joint committee does not itself commission research studies or undertake research, although it has proposed research by others. As my hon. Friend knows, my Department has commissioned a study, started in January 1976, organised by the Middlesex Hospital Medical School to estimate the frequency of the incidence of vaccine damage in infants and children admitted to hospital, and supports a study, started in March 1974, at the Microbiological Research Establishment, Porton Down, to produce a better whooping-cough vaccine. In addition to these two sponsored studies the Public Health Laboratory Service is undertaking a study to record all adverse reactions to immunisation in the North West Thames Region. As these studies are still proceeding, the question of publication has not yet arisen. The results of the Miller and Fletcher study into the severity of whooping cough during the winter of 1974–75 were published in the British Medical Journal on 17th January 1976.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will estimate the proportion of children aged 1 to 5 years at the beginning of 1975, who had been full immunised against whooping cough; and if he will give the figures for the proportion fully vaccinated of the children aged 1 to 5 years who had whooping cough between October 1974 and March 1975 and were studied in the report of 8,000 cases by Miller and Fletcher.

I am having the information assembled and will circulate it in the Official Report as soon as possible.