Health: Vaccines

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is quite right. We in this country are very lucky to have the NHS and, for example, the numerous leaflets that are trusted by so many people and available in surgeries across the country, which are not available to people in Africa. Any misinformation found on the internet can have very harmful effects. I could not agree more with the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, the issue here is the herd immunity provided by mass vaccination. As my noble friend rightly points out, the influence and effect of social media are probably not assisted by unhelpful and ill-informed tweets by, for example, the President of the United States. Has the department done research that addresses when a population is at risk? Parents who do not get their children vaccinated are actually freeloading on the immunity created by parents who are responsible and do get their children vaccinated. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell me whether the department has researched when immunity cover is compromised and put it in the Library.

[The Earl of Courtown]

I thank the noble Baroness. She makes a very important point about lowering immunisation where other individuals are not immunised themselves. I think the available figures say that 5% of parents refuse to let their children be immunised. This can have an effect. One can see blips in uprates in diseases. I will of course try to find out any further information and I will write to the noble Baroness and send a copy to the Library.