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Retro - January 2001: Fears over MMR jab
PUBLIC UNREST: Doubts were raised after a possible link between the MMR jab and autism.
The YEP turns back the clock to find out what was making the news in Leeds and beyond in January 2001.
THE BIG STORY
DOCTORS were battling to reassure parents everywhere the MMR vaccine was safe.
Hundreds of parents withdrew their children from the jab following public unrest over a possible link between the measles, mumps and rubella jab to autism.
Doubts were first raised in 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield, who worked at the Royal Free Hospital.
In Leeds, the uptake of the vaccine was only 86 per cent. Doctors warned children would die as a result.
Uncertainty continued in part because GPs themselves harboured doubts over its use – in a survey in Leeds, almost half of family doctors said they had reservations about using it.
The survey also revealed one in five GPs hadn’t read official guidance on the use of the jab and a third believed it was linked to Crohn’s disease and autism.
A Finnish study, published on January 12, ruled out a link to autism.
THE HEADLINES
* Two companies were battling to take over education services in Leeds: Serco and Capita, but the council put back a decision on who should win. The move to privatise education in Leeds, a first for the country, followed a damaging Ofsted report which criticised two-thirds of the council-run services.
* Leeds United launched the ‘Keep It Clean’ campaign in a bid to cut swearing at Elland Road and threatened to ban any fan caught cursing.
* Shows on television included the likes of Stars In Their Eyes, hosted by Matthew Kelly, At Home With The Braithwaites, a TV drama based around a family starring Amanda Redman and penned by Halifax writer Sally Wainwright, and sci-fi series Star Trek: Voyager, a spin-off from the original series.
* Films on at the cinema included Castaway, starring Tom Hanks, Hannibal, the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, starring Anthony Hopkins, and Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis as a comic anti-hero.
* Former drug tsar Keith Hellawell, who was also the former Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, announced the Government had decided not to decriminalise cannabis.
* Seven thousand revellers braved freezing temperatures and torrential rain to stage the biggest new year’s party Leeds had ever seen, the centrepiece of the celebrations being the official unveiling of the £12m Millennium Square, which was marked at midnight with a 10-minute-long firework display, during which 10 tonnes of fireworks were let off.
* Peter Mandelson resigned from Tony Blair’s government for the second time, this time falling on his sword after being involved in the Hinduja brothers passport application scandal.
* The country’s biggest temporary ice rink opened on January 26. The 800sq m Ice Cube, in Millennium Square, cost £3.50-an-hour.
* A 12-year-old schoolboy was ordered out of his classroom in Southampton after turning up with his hair styled like Craig David.
THE WORLD
* Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was sentenced to life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in which an plane carrying 259 people crashed into a small Scottish town, killing a further 11 – the 48-year-old served nine years and was then released on compassionate grounds following reports he had months to live – he is still alive today and late last year faced extradition to the US.
* On January 13, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale hit El Salvador, killing 800 people.
* George W Bush succeeded Bill Clinton as the 43rd President of the United States – Latino singer Ricky Martin attended his four-day-long inaugural party at Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC.
THE GOSSIP
* Wimbledon champion Boris Becker gave his estranged wife £10m in a divorce settlement, plus another £2,500 a month to look after their sons, Noah, six, and Elias, 16 months, and a £1.8m holiday home off the coast of Florida.
l Madonna and Guy Ritchie appeared in public for the first time in Los Angeles at the premier of Ritchie’s film Snatch, on January 19.
AND FINALLY...
* Inner-city Leeds was branded the crime capital of the country following a report which showed the area had a break-in rate of 105 per 1,000 homes – higher than anywhere else in the country. The figures related to Milgarth’s jurisdiction, from October 1999 to September 2000.
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