Public health warning on TV to push MMR

Vaccine » Chief Medical Officer to broadcast personal appeal amid fear of epidemic due to low take-up of triple jab

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Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, is considering the extraordinary step of broadcasting a personal appeal on the MMR vaccine, stressing the need for its take-up to avoid the threat of a measles epidemic.

It would be the first time since the Aids epidemic scare of the early 1980s that ITV companies and the BBC have been asked to allow a public service broadcast by the government on a health warning, and it underlines the depth of concern in Whitehall over the need to dispel notions that the MMR jab may be linked to autism.

The campaign will start with an open letter setting out the case for the mumps, measles and rubella jab being sent to all 12,000 GP surgeries in England and Wales and 24,000 other health bodies.

An MMR advertising campaign is expected within a fortnight; the Department of Health has re-appointed the advertising agency BMP DDB to handle it after a £3m drive last year urging families to take up the triple vaccine. Full-page newspaper adverts, endorsed by Professor Donaldson and Sarah Mullally, the Chief Nursing Officer, will be followed by a "mopping up" exercise aimed at persuading parents of unvaccinated children aged 18-21 months to talk to GPs' nurses about the jab.

The campaign, officials said, will exert emotional pressure, emphasising that vaccination protects the entire population.

Yvette Cooper, the Public Health minister, who allowed her first child to have the MMR vaccine, has put Professor Donaldson in charge of the public relations strategy to distance ministers from the advice given the public.

But No 10's website this weekend says "the Government strongly supports" the jabs. The site states:

• MMR saves lives
• The vaccine is the best way of protecting children
• Since MMR was introduced in the UK the number of children catching these diseases has fallen to an all-time low
• MMR is used in over 90 countries, with more than 500 million MMR doses given.
• No child has died of acute measles in over a decade
• Independent experts agree that on all the evidence available, there is no link between MMR and either autism or inflammatory bowel disease
• Separate single vaccines put children at risk and there is no evidence that giving them is as safe as MMR. No country recommends single rather than combined vaccines.