'My baby caught measles at eight months - anti-vaxxers are risking kids' lives'

'My baby caught measles at eight months - anti-vaxxers are risking kids' lives' As it emerges that two children have died in measles outbreaks so far this year, mum Catherine Cooper has shared her experiences of caring for her baby through measles, and the anger she felt towards those responsible For the first time in nearly a decade, two children in England and Wales have tragically died in a single year after contracting measles, as health officials warn that the airborne disease is circulating in "many parts of the country". The UK Health Security Agency revealed a massive spike in "measles activity" earlier this year, with a rash of major outbreaks tearing through London, the East of England and the West Midlands. An additional 106 laboratory-confirmed measles cases were recorded in just the last fortnight, bringing the total to 736 since January. For parents like Sunday Times bestselling author Catherine Cooper, these figures bring back terrible memories. Twenty two years ago Catherine's eldest child, Toby, caught the highly infectious disease when he was just eight months old. She's previously issued a stern warning to anti-vax parents who actively choose not to innoculate their children, leaving them unprotected against deadly diseases. Toby caught the virus at a the gym creche she attended while the family lived in South London. At that time, he was a perfectly healthy baby but too young to receive the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella) which is typically given at one year old. Catherine, who now lives in the South of France, realised something was seriously wrong when Toby developed red eyes, a high temperature, and a signature full-body rash. "He was obviously ill," Catherine told the Mirror. "Normally if he was ill, I'd give him Calpol and keep an eye on him and like most babies, he'd be better later the next day. But that time, maybe because of the rash, I knew he needed to go to the doctor'." At the clinic, the GP rushed them through to avoid infecting a crowded waiting room. "I took him in, and the middle-aged doctor she said, 'I'm sorry to tell you, but it looks like he's got measles'." "I was like, 'What?' Because, as far as I was concerned, that was something that didn't really happen anymore. It was really rare. And she actually said, 'Do you mind if I show my colleague, who is a younger doctor, because she's probably never seen a case of measles before?'" The stunned mum was then told to take her child home and care for him there. Happily after a week out of home, Toby came out the other side absolutely fine. But Catherine knows that things could have been very different, and that her son had been very "lucky". In severe cases, measles can result in serious complications, including meningitis, blindness, pneumonia and seizures. When little Toby fell ill, South London was something of a "hot spot" for parents who weren't vaccinating their kids. This was back when many still followed the advice of anti-vaccine activist and fraudster Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 Lancet MMR autism study inaccurately linked autism to the MMR vaccine. Alarmist publicity over this widely debunked study led to a steep decline in vaccination uptake and various measles outbreaks. Between 1996 and 2002, MMR vaccination rates dropped from 91.8 per cent to 81 per cent in England and Wales. In some regions, including London, the coverage rate dropped below 60 per cent. For parents like Catherine, who fully support vaccinations, they too were left suffering as outbreaks spread into creches and nurseries. She's now urged others to consider other people's children as well as their own before making what is all too often viewed as an individual choice. Catherine said, "It hadn't been my choice. He wasn't old enough for MMR. If I had chosen for him not to have MMR, then I would have blamed myself, but I didn't because he wasn't old enough, so I blamed whoever had made that choice, almost for him, really. "And I think this is what people don't really appreciate, is they're not only making a choice for their own child, they're making a choice for all the other children or people that that child potentially comes into contact with. "And particularly if you're really immunosuppressed or if you have other illnesses, it can be particularly dangerous. But even for a healthy child, it can be dangerous." Disgraced Wakefield was struck off the medical register for "serious professional misconduct" in 2010, following an inquiry by the General Medical Council (GMC), while The Lancet has now fully retracted Wakefield's discredited study. Unfortunately, Wakefield's shadow still looms large and, in a world of widespread misinformation, experts have noted a disturbing trend. Indeed, as per the UK Health Security Agency, there were 2,911 laboratory-confirmed measles cases in England in 2024 - the highest annual number on record since 2012. With a wealth of readily available information at their fingertips, one might presume that today's parents can research and debunk myths with greater ease than those before them. Catherine isn't surprised to find this isn't the case. Her own painful experiences have left her with "an almost unhealthy interest" in misinformation and conspiracy theories. She explained: "It's mainly the growth of social media. It's now very easy to take your theory and get it out there, and if you do it in the right way, I mean, the right way for you, people will believe it. I think back in the day, I guess these people probably still existed, but they couldn't get their message out quite so rampantly. "In some ways it is surprising because with the internet it should be easy to keep yourself informed, but in some ways it's not surprising because there's so much bad information out there that's very easily accessible and of course, the way the algorithms work, once you start looking at this thing, you're fed more and more and more until it becomes self-perpetuating." Toby is now an engineering student in his 20s, but for Catherine, the memory of caring for her sick baby remains, and the ordeal has had a significant impact on her life. It even inspired part of the plot of her second novel, The Chateau - although you'll have to purchase the twisty thriller for yourself to find out more. The fictional world aside, Catherine now takes every opportunity she can to raise awareness of the importance of vaccinations and to tackle health misinformation. However, she admits it isn't always easy to persuade those who are already stuck in this fixed mindset. She reflected: "It seems to have blown up so much, particularly since Covid. I do think it's a worry because once somebody's got into this mindset, it's very, very hard to get them out of it. While I do like to speak about my experience of this, part of me knows that it's probably not going to make that much difference because people who are really, really ingrained in it are going to just be like, 'Oh okay, well she would say that'." Issuing a warning to others, Catherine continued: "I think people kind of have the attitude of, 'Oh, it won't happen to me, it won't happen to my child, and it does happen. Toby was lucky; he was fine, but some children aren't." Do you have a story to share? Email me at [email protected]