Minister admits MPs were misled over vaccine rules

A minister apologised yesterday after the Government admitted misleading MPs five times over the use of animal products in vaccines.

The Department of Health's embarrassing admission follows the withdrawal of an oral polio vaccine in 2000 amid fears that it could contain material linked to vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease. Last year it was revealed that two youngsters from Southampton who developed the disease had been inoculated from the same batch of the vaccine.

Making an emergency Commons statement on the Government mistakes, Hazel Blears, a Health minister, stood by the decision to recall the vaccine and insisted there had been an "incalculably small" risk of the disease being passed on to humans. But she admitted a series of "incorrect or misleading" answers about the rules on vaccines had been given to MPs after the decision.

Ms Blears said: "Ministers made these statements on the basis of incorrect advice and information given to them at the time by the Medicines Control Agency, which licences medicines for the UK market and monitors the safety of medicines in use."

The mistakes related to rules concerning the use of cattle products in vaccines, the vaccines' licensing and information about the expiry dates of some vaccines.

Ms Blears said a huge exercise was under way across Europe to ensure all vaccines were assessed for compliance against a revised set of guidelines. She said that many were technically in breach of European guidance until the new guidelines were adopted, but checks had been completed to ensure none posed a risk to public health.

"Let us be in no doubt vaccination is the single most important public health measure of modern times. Vaccines save millions of lives around the world every year." The minister said it was important to provide clear assurances that vaccines were safe.

Oliver Heald, a Tory health spokesman, questioned the speed of the response by the Medicines Control Agency and the Government one the pharmaceutical company Powderject initially informed them of the vaccine problems.