The following pages use coloured circles to represent 100 children. The number of children out of 100 who may experience common symptoms or complications as a result of getting measles mumps or rubella are compared with the number of children out of 100 who may experience a complication as a result of receiving the MMR vaccine. The children who experience a complication are colour coded according to the complication they experience.

The rare and serious complications of the diseases and MMR vaccine are given as the number of children who would experience these complications in a population of 1 million children.

The risks associated with the MMR vaccine are the same for all the diseases. The risks associated with contracting the diseases are different and your child may get one, two or all three of these diseases if they are not vaccinated.

The potential risks of the diseases versus the potential risks of MMR vaccination are summarised for a population of 250,000 children who receive the vaccination and 250,000 who do not receive the vaccination and get all three of the diseases.

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