The State's only GP who openly provides single vaccines instead of MMR talks to Alison Healy
The State's 10 health boards have said they do not give any help to parents who want to get single vaccines instead of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Spokespersons for the health boards said they follow a policy of telling parents that the MMR combined vaccine is the recommended programme and that single vaccines are not licensed here.
However, parents are bringing in the single vaccine from France or Britain and several GPs are administering the product in the Republic, although the Irish College of General Practitioners advises against the single vaccine.
These parents are worried that the combined vaccine could trigger autism in certain children. Ms Kathryn Sinnott, of the Hope Foundation, and mother of Jamie Sinnott, who was at the centre of a court case to compel education for autistic people, says she would be concerned about the MMR if a child had previous reactions to vaccinations, if a sibling had contracted autism, or if there were immune-system problems.
These risks have been firmly rejected by the Department of Health and the World Health Organisation. They warn that MMR scares could result in a measles epidemic with tragic results.
A Department spokesman says there is no evidence that giving the vaccines separately could have any greater benefit than the combined vaccines.
Dr Ita Doyle, a member of the National Immunisation Committee of the ICGP, says single vaccines are not licensed here, so their safety or efficacy cannot be established. Vaccines have to be stored at a certain temperature, and if parents carry them back from England without a cool box the vaccine could be destroyed.
Dr Mary Grehan is the only GP who openly administers single vaccines, but parents of autistic children are finding sympathetic GPs who will administer the single vaccine to the siblings.
The Irish Society of Autism is regularly contacted by parents seeking advice on the single vaccine. Mr Pat Matthews, ISA chief executive, says it is unfair for the Department to leave parents in a state of confusion. While the Department is adamant that MMR does not cause autism, it cannot explain what does, he says.
Dr Grehan says parents tell her they would not vaccinate their children if they did not have the single vaccine. Yesterday she had a waiting list of over two months at her Dundalk clinic. In the past two weeks her surgery received more than 600 calls on the subject. Parents are bringing children from England because there are six-month waiting lists there.
Dr Grehan's vaccines are licensed in the EU so a GP can import them on a named-patient basis. This means the patient must pay four visits instead of one - a preliminary visit to satisfy the "named patient" requirement and each vaccine requires a visit.
She leaves 12 weeks between each vaccine, giving the measles injection first. Critics of the single vaccine claim children are needlessly exposed between the visits, but she rejects this. "These children wouldn't be vaccinated at all if they didn't get the single vaccine."
Dr Grehan charges €600 for the full course of vaccinations but she says parents don't care how much it costs. She hopes to have a network of GPs around the country administering the single vaccines by the summer. By the time the children need their booster shot in four years' time, she hopes single vaccines will be freely available.
She rejects claims that parents will not finish the course. "I have parents bringing children over and back from England. They are coming back from every corner in Ireland. They are adamant about this."