Dad lost son to meningitis - blasts Government over vaccine delay - Sunderland Echo

Dad lost son to meningitis – blasts Government over vaccine delay – Sunderland Echo

Last Updated: March 14, 2015By Mike SivierTags: delay, disagree, Glenn, government, haggle, haggling, health, Immunisation, JCVI, Joint Committee, Ken Robinson, Mengingitis B, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, negotiate, negotiation, price, Robinson, Sunderland Echo, Vaccination, vaccine, Vox Political

Meningitis vaccine campaigner Ken Robinson [Image: Sunderland Echo].

A father who lost his son to meningitis has hit out at the Government for not introducing a life-saving vaccine on the NHS almost a year after it was deemed safe to use, writes David Allison in the Sunderland Echo.

Meningitis B has for decades been the single largest cause of meningitis in the UK. A vaccine against MenB was recommended by the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in March 2014 to be routinely given to children in the UK.

However almost a year on there are no signs that the vaccine will become part of childhood immunisation programme any time soon – after the maker of the vaccine and the Government failed to agree a price for its use.

Ken Robinson, of Newbottle, in Houghton… who has himself raised £80,000 towards meningitis research since his son Glenn’s death of the meningococcal septicaemia strain of the illness, aged 16 in 1997… told the Echo: “It’s absolutely ridiculous that this hasn’t been implemented a year on. You can’t put a price on a kid’s life.”

Read more on the Sunderland Echo website.

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4 Comments

Pod March 14, 2015 at 11:39 am - Reply

Pharma can and do put prices on kids lives, they are not in it to help people, they are in it to get rich.
Ian March 14, 2015 at 2:56 pm - Reply

Tories will use this as proof to claim NHS is incapable and use it as reason to privatise, which their donors want, and so Tories will continue to cut and refuse to invest in the NHS.
- Mike Sivier March 14, 2015 at 3:01 pm - Reply
  
  But you’ve seen through that, as have other people, so they’ll lose the election on the basis that they distort the facts.
David Holyoak March 14, 2015 at 4:34 pm - Reply

You can sign the petition at: http://www.meningitis.org/wheres-our-vaccine