BRITAIN: The MMR controversy followed Mr Tony Blair all the way to Africa yesterday, as the Labour government faced a threatened wave of rail, mail and teachers strikes.
Royal Mail workers voted overwhelmingly for industrial action over pay, bringing the threat of a national postal strike a step closer. At the same time the National Union of Teachers announced plans to ballot its members on a one-day strike, this time over cost-of-living payments, which could affect hundreds of London schools.
The new face of union militancy struck as the government defied trades unions and London Mayor Ken Livingstone, giving the go-ahead for the part-privatisation of the London Underground.
Health officials battled to regain the initiative over MMR against the backdrop noise of Conservative glee about a leaked Labour document on the National Health Service, which appeared to signal a shift away from the party's historic commitment to universal treatment free for all at the point of use.
As Britain's reportedly sole supplier of single vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella ran out of jabs, the prime minister gave the clearest hint yet that his son, Leo, had received the MMR injection. Mr Blair told reporters travelling with him: "I hope people realise that I would never ask someone, or advise someone, or pass on advice to someone, to do something as a parent which I believe is dangerous to my own child."
Back in London, meanwhile, the government's chief medical officer maintained the pro-MMR offensive, warning parents that offering a single jab would amount to "playing Russian roulette" with children's lives. In a concerted bid to quell rising fears that the triple jab may be linked to bowel disorders and autism, Sir Liam Donaldson insisted the facts were overwhelmingly in favour of its safety.
And he insisted mounting calls for single vaccines to be made available would not work and would have "a disastrous" effect, placing youngsters at greater risk of potentially serious diseases.