Reaction to Meningitis B vaccine rejection.

The decision today by the UK government to reject the vaccine for meningitis B comes down to money. As there is a lack of an evidence base, they have rejected it. The problem is that there won't be an evidence base unless an EU country decides to incorporate it. As yet none have.

The vaccine developed by Novartis is thought to be effective against 73% of the forms of the disease and would offer significant protection to the under 5 age group. Our daughter Thea died aged 15 months due to the most organism to affect that age group - Neisseria meningitidis. Protection against this organism would be offered by this new vaccine.

The debilitating effects of this disease include brain damage and loss of limbs. If this new drug is deemed to be too expensive to be considered worthy of a place in the National Immunisation Programme, I can only guess at the long term cost of having to provide care for a severely brain damaged child as they make their way through life.

For all of us who care so passionately about this, today's decision has come as a bitter blow. We can't save the loved ones we have lost but we can seek to prevent anybody else having to endure the effects of this dreadful disease. For the record, the government was being advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

If anybody reading this has a child who has died or has been left physically scarred by this disease, I share your anger at this decision. On so many levels I think they have got it wrong today and sincerely hope that common sense will prevail before any more lives are needlessly affected. Putting a price on any life is a very difficult business but it seems all the more so when considering the quality of life which faces one so young who has been affected in this way. Rest assured, we will not give up until this vaccine is available to all.

I would have thought that the recent outbreak of Measles in South Wales might have served to a timely reminder to the committee of the value of vaccination. One life was lost and hundreds of thousands of pounds needlessly spent trying desperately to vaccinate people who had chosen not to be. The National Vaccination Programme is there for a reason - it saves lives and it reduces the disabling effects of a select group of pathogenic bacteria.

Oscar Wilde once observed that a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. How true.