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How educated parents have snubbed the MMR jab
By JAMES CHAPMAN »

Highly-educated parents were more prone to stop their children having the measles, mumps and rubella jab during the scare over the vaccine, research shows.

A report into attitudes towards the joint MMR injection found a lower take-up rate among parents who had gone on to further education.

They were also less likely to to have their children immunised against other diseases following the controversy surrounding MMR.

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Highly-educated parents are reluctant to let their children receive the MMR injection following a scare over the vaccination

Claims that the vaccine increased the risk of autism, first made in a 1998 study for The Lancet, started a decade-long debate over the use of the single MMR jab.

A team from Royal Holloway, University of London, examined data from the Millennium Cohort Study to see how attitudes towards the vaccines changed following the allegations - which have since been debunked by much of the scientific community.

Before 1998, highly-educated parents were up to eight per cent more likely to take up the MMR vaccine than those who did not go into further education.

But by 2002, the highly-educated were less likely to have their children inoculated.

The research came as Tory leader David Cameron last night confirmed that his two elder children have had the MMR jab.

The Conservative leader said five-year-old Ivan and four-year-old Nancy had both been given the vaccine, while two-year-old Arthur is also due to have it.