It's quite clear from what Tony Blair said when he came to power that he them - perhaps now? - considered that all the ills - all the bigotry and conflict and poverty and suffering ... of the working class could be removed if they all got a 'proper education' like wot he did.

So it's quite a problem for him if these problems have a medical origin, a quite a problem for us if we can't tell whether that medical problem is genetic or not.

So, start from poverty and ignorance. Move on to : there's certain infectious illnesses it's just best for children to get behind them as young as possible.

Ah Hold it right there.

So if the immunity intended by nature to be passed on to the child in its mother's colostrum isn't there or isn't given because the mother doesn't breast feed then we stand between the simple but quite effective concept of immunisation is the way we make sure children get their infections out of the way as early as possible and the far more complicated We know how the immune system works and we give a vaccine which is more akin to colostrum than to infection.

A ha. A different concept. A safer concept. Complex. So complex I struggle for an analogy. Licence plates. Automobile licence plates. You get the number you've got the vehicle. We know about DNA. Some of us know about RNA. The modern vaccines don't bung the pathogen at the 'victim' . They bung enough information about the pathogen - it's licence plate - at the person being vaccinated. So - in these cases of the very clever vaccines - we give the child something which will allow the child to identify the bugs it really needs to nail, without actually giving the bug itself dead or alive.

In the mean time perhaps it should be education, education, health after all.

I'm not quite sure I've explained this fully enough.

When you get a vaccination you get asked if you're feeling well. If you say you're ill they - normally speaking - postpone the vaccination.

The point is that if this is the UK in the 1930s and half a dozen illnesses are rampant then if you catch them one at a time you stand a better chance then if you catch them all at once.

In the UK in 2004 none of these infections is rampant - except in localised populations. Hence, in the interests of efficiency it makes sense to immunise against as many illnesses as possible - especially when you are not doing it by deliberately infecting the patient but by handing in a list of number plates or a portfolio of mug shots.

You're clearing a space in the timetable of the body and saying hey look read learn and inwardly digest , these are the bad bugs, get the whole picture clear in the one hit.