Now at last, at her third attempt, she has won a payout from the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.  It will help Jackie and her husband John to care for Robert, now 18.

I first met Jackie and Robert in 1994 – 18 months after his MMR jab and subsequent seizures – when I was medical editor of the Daily Mirror. She was not anti-vaccine but simply wanted the government to recognise that problems could occur and provide adequate compensation.

That is why the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme was set up in 1978. It followed an historic speech by Jack Ashley MP in the House of Commons in January 1974 about children who had been damaged by routine immunisation programmes.  It was the first time any government had admitted there could be a risk for some children.

But despite the evidence it has proved extremely difficult for Jackie and other mothers to receive the compensation they deserve

“I am not trying to scaremonger and I know the vaccination is very valuable in protecting children against awful childhood diseases,” she told me. “But there are rare cases where things go wrong and we want doctors to explain this to parents.”

Any mother would naturally be overwhelmed with guilt that her actions of agreeing to a vaccination condemned her once healthy child to a future of severe disability Jackie was no exception. A brave and determined woman she not only fought for a deal for her son but for other parents who believe their children have been damaged by vaccination. She set up a pressure group JABS (Justice, Awareness and Basic Support).to help and support them all.
 
Her payout is a welcome and well deserved victory, but it should not be high jacked by the MMR campaigners who are convinced the jab is linked to autism and inflammatory bowel disease and who are no doubt now likely to jump onto the bandwagon, claiming this supports their concerns.

The payout is not proof that MMR is dangerous it is proof that it can be risky for some children. Sadly there is no way of telling which ones. Robert was a happy healthy baby with no underlying medical problems when he was given the jab aged 13 months.

The controversy over MMR did not start until four years AFTER Robert received his jab by which time there had been a nationwide campaign which involved seven million schoolchildren aged between five and 16 being given the vaccine. MMR was introduced in 1988 for 12-15months old babies as part of their routine vaccination programme. This was followed in the autumn 1994 with a mass catch-up programme for those children who had missed out as babies.

MMR was and is considered one of the safest and most effective childhood vaccines. In the early 90s more than 90% of children received the jab.

But this changed dramatically with the research by Dr Andrew Wakefield linking MMR to autism which was published in the Lancet in 1998. Uptake plummeted to 75% and despite being widely criticised by doctors and scientists and numerous other research papers proving there was no link the fears among parents remained.

In 2002 the world’s largest investigation which involved detailed analysis of 2000 studies involving millions of children in 180 countries found that only one – led by Dr Andrew Wakefield- found any link between MMR and autism.

Yet despite 12 years of reassurance that there is no link and the fact that Andrew Wakefield has been struck off the medical register and forced to move to America there are still parents who remain convinced that their child’s autism was caused by MMR.

The latest ruling giving Robert Fletcher the compensation he so richly deserves will only fuel their beliefs and even more sadly could encourage other parents to have second thoughts when agreeing to their child being vaccinated...

They should remember that for the vast majority of children vaccinations, including MMR, are safe and provide valuable protection against debilitating and deadly diseases.