>From the Evening Times of Scotland, Oct. 20, 2000
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 PARENTS RISK LOSING CHILDREN' OVER MMR COMPLAINTS
 by ALAN MacDERMID
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> PARENTS who claim their children have developed autism as a result of
> being given the controversial MMR vaccine risk having them taken away by
> social workers, MSPs will be told next week.
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> A leading autism expert said yesterday that an estimated 200 such
> families in the UK, including Scotland, had lost their children after
> being accused of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy.
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> Dr Paul Shattock, director of the Autism Research Unit at Sunderland
> University, said the court orders had been carried out under cover of
> draconian gagging orders framed ostensibly to safeguard the identity of
> the children.
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> He will lay his allegations before MSPs on Wednesday, at the launch of
> the Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Group on Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
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> "There have been cases where people say their children are autistic and
> blame the vaccine. Then social services come and say the child is not
> autistic, you have made him that way because of Munchausen's, and they
> take the children away," he said.
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> The term Munchausen's syndrome by proxy was coined to describe parents
> who subject their children to unnecessary medical care on the pretext of
> a bogus illness, in extreme cases injuring the children or making them
> ill in order to fit their fantasies. It is often seen as an
> attention-seeking device.
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> Dr Shattock said it was now being used as a cover-up over the suspected
> link between the combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine, introduced
> in 1988, and a distinctive combination of autism and intestinal disorder
> described nearly three years ago by Dr Andrew Wakefield at the Royal Free
> Hospital in London, and which he attributed to excess strain on the
> immune system caused by giving all three vaccines in one jab.
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> It has precipitated demands by parents to have each vaccine administered
> singly with an interlude between each, a move resisted by the Government.
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> "It is down to pride. The medical establishment can't admit to being
> wrong," said Dr Shattock.
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> "Something is going on, whether it is vaccines, pesticides, plasticisers
> in food, or whatever. The research the Government has provided in defence
> of MMR is flawed."
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> The Scottish Society for Autism, which will provide the professional
> secretariat for the all-party group, accepts that the evidence against
> MMR so far is anecdotal, but they want more research and, in the
> meantime, the option of single vaccines to be available for parents.
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> Spokesman Bruce Tait said: "It is available elsewhere in Europe.
> Presumably there is a cost implication for the Government."
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