THREE Hampshire families are to sue a pharmaceutical company over the MMR vaccine which they claim caused massive brain damage to their children.

Legal aid has been granted to the Page and Abrams families, both of Fareham, and the Mort family, of Winchester, in their attempt to sue the manufacturers of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

They believe the vaccine, known as Pluserix - made by Smithkline Beecham and Smith Kline and French Laboratories Ltd - irreversibly damaged their children, by triggering off autism and other illnesses.

A writ was issued on August 2 by solicitors acting for the first 25 child claimants from as far away as Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands.

Each is claiming damages exceeding £50,000 for injuries sustained after vacci-nation with the MMR vaccine between August 1, 1989 and October 15, 1991.

The vaccine was introduced in October 1988 and about four million UK children are thought to have been given the injection.

Jacqui Page, an information technology teacher, of Highfield Avenue, Fareham, is convinced the MMR vaccine ruined her son Christopher's life.

"Christopher will never, never be normal - nothing can bring back the normal child that he was before the vaccination," she said today.

Jacqui, who has three other children, said Christopher, a pupil at Heathfield Special School, Fareham, was 15 months old when she took him for his MMR vaccination, when the family was living in Kent.

"Straight afterwards he had a violent reaction and I believe the vaccine caused it."

Jacqui and husband Adrian tried to find out what had gone wrong with her son until a consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital confirmed that Christopher had developed signs of autism.

The family moved to Fareham to be near Jacqui's parents in order to be able to cope with Christopher's prob-lems as well as a growing family of three other children.

Today Tina Abrams, of Lawn Drive, Locks Heath, declined to fully discuss the matter, which involves her 11-year-old daughter Katie Marie Goodland.

But she did say that she blamed the vaccine entirely.

"One day I took my daughter to the doctor's and she came back a different person," she said.

Betty Mort, 46, of Sparkford Road, Winchester, claims her family has been devastated by the controversial MMR treatment that was given to her son Daniel, 13, when he was three years old.

She said: "He had previously been a healthy, normal child. But within three weeks he had an epileptic fit. Since then he has had varying degrees of epilepsy, severe speech and learning difficulties and has got autistic tendencies.

"I believe the company should have known that there are children more susceptible to these triple vaccines.

"If the company admits the dangers they will have to pay millions in compensation."

Mrs Mort blames the strain of looking after Daniel for the breakdown in her marriage. She has three younger sons, Luke, 11, Sam, 10, and Patrick, 8.

A spokesman for SmithKline Beecham said they were aware that writs had been issued over the matter and the company's stance would be vigorously defended.

"All published scientific research shows there is absolutely no causal link between the use of MMR and autism and inflammatory bowel disease," he said.

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