JUST what are worried parents supposed to do if their children need measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jabs?

Worried mums and dads in Oxfordshire have been calling their GPs and the health authority ever since scare stories hit the headlines.

Do we really have to make this terrifying choice: vaccinate our children and risk autism and bowel disorder, or miss the jabs and watch them suffer the potentially fatal consequences of measles, mumps or rubella.

Researchers imply one thing, experts suggest another, pressure groups are horrified and NHS managers appeal for calm.

This leaves parents dazed and anxious because all this talk is about what could happen to their children.

A parents' advisory group on vaccinations, Jabs, wants the three-in-one injection suspended and the vaccines given separately at one-year intervals. Jabs' founder-member Jackie Fletcher said: "Hundreds of families have reported severe problems following the MMR vaccination including 100 per cent deafness, epilepsy, juvenile arthritis and diabetes, paralysis, autism and death. The Department of Health say the cases are anecdotal and are not checking them out."

Some Oxfordshire mums are refusing to be thrown into panic.

Sarah Marshall has three boys under seven and has never worried about their MMR injections.

"My eldest son, Danny, is six and he's had both doses of the injection. My second son, Kane, who is two, has had one and I have no hesitation in taking Elliott, who is four-months-old for his.

The 31-year-old mum, who lives with her children and husband Paul, in Friars Hill, Oxford, thinks parents should follow the chief medical officer's advice and continue with the vaccinations. "I think the injection is important. The risks they're talking about with the MMR are miniscule compared to the problems we'll all have if our kids aren't inoculated against these diseases," she said.

Sarah Wilkinson, 31, has two children and doesn't feel too concerned about the injection.

The mother, who lives in Rose Hill, Oxford, said: "I think the vaccination is good. My friend's little boy has measles at the moment and I'm pregnant, but fortunately I'm immune to it.

"A first-time pregnant woman who doesn't know if she has had the vaccination or not would be far more worried. I'm not worried about it and think it is a chance you have to take.

"It does frighten you, especially when you hear about the consequences and, of course, you have to hear about what could happen."

Mother-of-two Judith Moreton is Oxfordshire's immunisation co-ordinator, in charge of all the vaccinations given to the county's children.

MMR jabs did not exist when her children were younger, but they did have the measles and rubella injections in 1994. Mrs Moreton said: "My children are fully immunised, and if I had young children again they would be given the MMR vaccination."

She has been receiving calls from worried parents ever since the MMR scare broke a few days ago.

They had read the headlines but did not know the details.

She said: "I was talking to a lady on the telephone who was worried, but she said at the end of it she was much happier because she hadn't realised exactly what it was all about.

"MMR is a very safe and effective vaccine and has been used worldwide to prevent these serious diseases."

Dr Dick Mayon-White, Oxfordshire's public health consultant in communicable diseases, said the known side-effects of an MMR jab were developing "mini" mumps or measles symptoms which showed the body was building up immunity to the diseases. The rubella part of the injection rarely had side-effects.

Any parent who asks for their children to have separate jabs for MMR will be disappointed. The measles vaccine is not licensed to be given on its own, so doctors will not want to offer it. Dr Mayon-White pleaded for parents to continue with MMR jabs.

"We believe there is a risk that people will be led towards doing something which really is not the responsible thing for their children.

"MMR will continue to be given as usual, but of course we will talk to parents about their anxieties."

The health authority said MMR jabs, introduced in October 1988, had cut the number of measles cases in Oxfordshire from 1,300 in 1977 to one in 1996; mumps from 240 cases in 1989 to one in 1996, and rubella from 230 to 70 in the same period. Study that led to the panic ALARM bells went off after a study was published in The Lancet journal by doctors at London's Royal Free Hospital.

It raised the question of a link between the jabs and autism and bowel problems.

They studied 12 children, aged six on average, with bowel disorders and behavioural problems. Parents said their children had behaved normally until the age of two, roughly the time they had MMR jabs.

"Onset of behavioural symptoms were associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children..." says the report. "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described."

Only one of the 13 report's authors, Dr Andrew Wakefield, has suggested that MMR injections should be given as three separate injections. Many experts have since said the report provides no evidence for the link. Autism begins to show at about the age of two regardless of vaccinations - and children are given MMR jabs, coincidentally, shortly before they are two.

The World Health Organisation has written to the Lancet saying it is concerned the report may have damaged worldwide vaccine programmes.

Doctors at the hospital plan to carry out more detailed studies to settle the issue one way or the other.

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