Sir, Your leading article, “Morals and measles” (January 5), asserts that “There is no evidence that the (MMR) vaccine can cause brain damage.”

Just such a stance was taken in the 1960s and 1970s concerning the DPT vaccine (diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus). Indeed both medical and legal opinion was that the convulsions that occurred were “infantile convulsions” that would have occurred anyway.

By the end of the 1970s, the Government had conceded that the vaccine could cause brain damage. Only today I have received, as a trustee for a person affected by the DPT vaccine, in a trust deed from the Secretary of State, a paragraph which contains the words: “The person of whom particulars are set out . . . below is severely disabled as a result of vaccination . . . ”

Some parents are more afraid of the consequences of vaccine damage than they are of the disease for which they are being encouraged to have their children vaccinated. Having seen the effects of vaccine damage, I have more than a little sympathy with their stance.