Family win 18 year fight over MMR damage to son: £90,000 payout is first since concerns over vaccine surfaced By Martin Delgado
A mother whose son suffered severe brain damage after he was given the controversial MMR vaccine as a baby has been awarded £90,000 compensation.
The judgment is the first of its kind to be revealed since concerns were raised about the safety of the triple jab.
Robert Fletcher, 18, is unable to talk, stand unaided or feed himself.
He endures frequent epileptic fits and requires round-the-clock care from his parents Jackie and John, though he is not autistic.
He suffered the devastating effects after being given the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine when he was 13 months old.
The Department of Health had always denied that the jab was the cause of Robert’s disability.
But now, in a judgment which will give hope to hundreds of other parents whose children have been severely affected by routine vaccinations, a medical assessment panel consisting of two doctors and a barrister has concluded that MMR was to blame.
Robert’s mother Jackie said the money would help with his care, though she described the amount as ‘derisory’.
Her first application for compensation under the Government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme was rejected in 1997 on the grounds that it was impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt what had caused Robert’s illness.
But Mrs Fletcher appealed and in a ruling delivered last week, a new panel of experts came to a different conclusion
In a six-page judgment, they said: ‘Robert was a more or less fit boy who, within the period usually considered relevant to immunisation, developed a severe convulsion… and he then went on to be epileptic and severely retarded.
‘The seizure occurred ten days after the vaccination. In our view, this cannot be put down to coincidence.
‘It is this temporal association that provides the link. It is this that has shown on the balance of probabilities that the vaccination triggered the epilepsy.
‘On this basis, we find that Robert is severely disabled as a result of vaccination and this is why we allowed the appeal.’
The ruling will reignite the debate over the safety of common childhood vaccines, although it makes clear that Robert’s case does not involve autism.
There is one other reported case of a family being given compensation as a result of an MMR jab.
But Mrs Fletcher said she believed the compensation award to Robert was the first to a surviving MMR-damaged person since controversy erupted in 1998 when the now discredited Dr Andrew Wakefield raised concerns about a possible link between the combined MMR injection and autism.
He has since been struck off the medical register.
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