George Fisher, aged 18 months, was a healthy and robust baby, but he died just ten days after being given an injection of MMR vaccine. He had earlier suffered a fever fit which can be aggravated by the vaccine.
The infant was discovered dead in his cot in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire by his mother Sarah Fisher just hours after he was heard "chatting away on the baby monitor", a coroner was told.
Mrs. Fisher and her husband Christopher believe the vaccine is "implicated" in their son's death. The temperature-raising effects of the drug on children who have suffered febrile convulsions were not explained to them.
Two doctors confirmed that giving MMR to children like George, who contracted the fever four months earlier, was permitted under patient guidelines.