Leeds dad vows not to give up on meningitis petition
A Leeds dad whose meningitis petition went viral says he's not giving up despite it being rejected by the government.
A Leeds dad whose meningitis petition went viral says he's not giving up despite it being rejected by the government.
Lee Booth is calling for the MenB vaccine to be given to all children under the age of 11. Currently it's only offered to babies.
The online petition attracted more than 815,000 signatures, making it the most popular in parliamentary history.
But the Department of Health has today said the move would not be cost effective.
"I'm still pretty confident that something will happen regarding the petition," says Lee.
"I would just urge everybody to write to their local MPs and still sign the petition to let them know support is still there for it.
"I still intend to go down to London. I've been invited to go down there in a couple of weeks' time.
"I'm going to take the evidence that I've got and they're going to review and listen to the people who've suffered from meningitis B and their families and the impact it's had on them. And obviously health care professionals as well."
Addressing the issue during Prime Minister's Questions, David Cameron appeared to suggest a final decision has not been made: "We need to look at all the evidence clearly, as do the expert bodies that advice us, recognising that Britain has already taken some very important steps forward in becoming the only country to vaccinate in this way.
"The programme is based on the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), who recommended targeting the vaccine to protect the infants at highest risk.
"The incident of highest risk does occur in babies of 5 months."
In a response to the petition, the Department of Health said: With this programme, our priority is to protect those children most at risk of Men B, in line with JCVI's recommendation.
"The NHS budget is a finite resource. It is therefore essential that JCVI's recommendations are underpinned by evidence of cost-effectiveness.
"Offering the vaccine outside of JCVI's advice would not be cost effective, and would not therefore represent a good use of NHS resources which should be used to benefit the health and care of the most people possible.
"When any new immunisation programme is introduced, there has to be a cut-off date to determine eligibility.
"While this is extremely difficult for parents whose children aren't eligible, there is no other way of establishing new programmes to target those at highest risk without introducing inequalities.''