PARENTS will always put the interests of their babies first - but sometimes, it can be hard to know which is the right course to take. Nothing better sums up such dilemmas than childhood vaccinations.

The combined measles, mumps and rubella jab is viewed with suspicion by some parents, who have been alarmed by fears that measles vaccination could be connected to autism. Further fears have suggested that the combined MMR jab could be linked to inflammatory bowel disease.

Feelings on this issue run high within the medical establishment, and if doctors cannot agree among themselves, parents are naturally left feeling insecure. Such has been the heat in this debate that one GP, Peter Mansfield, was reported to the General Medical Council for giving single vaccinations to those children whose parents asked for them, rather than insisting that they have the triple MMR jab.

The MMR jab was hailed as a breath-through when it was introduced in October 1998 and uptake of the jab was around 90 per cent until a paper in the medical journal The Lancet suggested a link between the MMR jab and autism.

Now a fresh report published today in another medical journal says exactly the opposite. This new paper, in Archives of Disease in Childhood, attacks earlier research which caused panic over the MMR jab. It maintains that the combined jab is safe - and that parents who take their children to have separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations may be putting them at risk of the diseases and unwanted side-effects.

The new paper finds there is "no case for the use of single vaccines", while adding that there is "a large body of evidence to show that MMR vaccine is highly effective and only rarely causes serious side effects".

All of which should leave parents reassured - or possibly even more confused than they were. Not all fears will be allayed by the rigorous new defence of MMR, and so further research is needed into this most sensitive of issues.

Updated: 10:23 Monday, September 24, 2001