Letter: Measles vaccine

Sir: The letter from Dr Sarah MacDermott regarding the MMR vaccine and parents not having their children immunised (3 September) displayed the kind of patronising attitude that is partly to blame for the problem.

I am the father of an eight-week-old baby and I can assure her that my wife and I are only too aware that we are responsible for her health, not my GP. It is offensive to label us pejoratively as "the chattering classes" and to assume that we are incapable of judging the merits of newspaper articles. It may be that only one of the authors of the relevant article in The Lancet suggested separate vaccines, but it was only one doctor who blew the whistle on the Bristol surgeons, only one scientist who insisted that BSE was a problem.

My mother and father were told that it would improve their health to have all their teeth out. Shoe shops were advised that x-ray machines were harmless. More recently, Gulf war soldiers had no reason to be concerned about multiple vaccinations.

Did they have the full information?