Immune to the critics

The natural health care practitioner made her decision before she even fell pregnant with Freddy, now five months old.

Germaine, of Chichester Place, Kemp Town, Brighton, did research for several years before making her decision.

She said: "It is not a case of saying I am not vaccinating because I am not bothering. I am taking special care so my child is healthy and able to fight off illness himself.

"Making the decision not to vaccinate is hard. Parents have to be brave to fight the health professionals and general public who think they are bonkers.

"If Freddy does get something, for example, measles, I would support him through it."

Magda Taylor's daughters, Ruby, 15, and Nancy, 13, began a programme of immunisation before their mum chose to stop.

In 1991, when Nancy was one, Magda, of Alexandra Road, Worthing, read about the negative side of vaccinations.

"It was enough to give me concern," she said. "Lots of alarm bells started going off."

She met parents who felt the same and together they launched The Informed Parent group, which aims to promote awareness and understanding about vaccinations, offer support and advise on alternatives.

Magda said: "I am not there to tell parents they are doing the wrong thing. I feel it is the right thing to do."

Apart from having had chickenpox, Ruby and Nancy are healthy children, although Mrs Taylor noticed Nancy developed eczema after her first vaccinations.

A polio vaccination at the age of five left Carol Stephenson aching in every joint in her body, with a high temperature and barely able to move for three weeks.

Now 52, Carol, who lives in the Ditchling Road area of Brighton, believes the vaccination was the cause of the ME she suffers from.

She thinks her immune system has been damaged and she has passed the weaknesses down to her children.

Although her eldest son is a healthy adult, her three other children have suffered bad reactions to vaccinations.

When her second son, now 30, was given the BCG vaccination at five, he had a fit within 24 hours and now has epilepsy.

Her third son, now 20, suffered with conjunctivitis and severe stomach problems after his measles vaccination. He now has a low immune system. When her daughter, now 14, had her diphtheria, tetanus and polio vaccination, without the whooping cough element, her face became swollen.

Carol was still keen to follow the vaccination programme. She got medical advice and took her daughter to have her MMR, after which she began suffering stomach aches, swollen glands, high temperatures and rashes.

Doctors suggested it could be a virus but when her daughter was due to have her measles and rubella booster when she was five, Carol was not keen to go ahead.

She asked for advice again and was persuaded to allow her daughter to have it but within 14 days the symptoms she had suffered before came back even worse. Today her daughter suffers from a bowel disorder.

Carol said: "My theory is because my immune system was damaged by vaccination I think there is a disposition in the family."

The uptake on the MMR vaccination is falling.

But more than 90 per cent of parents do immunise their children with regular baby vaccinations against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, HiB, which is a form of meningitis, and meningitis C.

Dr Angela Iversen, of the East Sussex branch of The Health Protection Agency, said: "The risks of not immunising are very dangerous. It is not protecting your child against the two common forms of meningitis. Think of the foreign travel people do nowadays. There are exotic destinations where diphtheria and polio are still possible.

"We have a very strict system of medicine and vaccine licensing in this country. Before anything is brought in it has to pass very stringent safety standards.

"As with any medication there would be a tiny, tiny chance of perhaps a child having an allergic reaction. We have to balance that against the more considerable risk of a child being seriously harmed by catching meningitis."