A BOLTON mum is suing a drug company in a ground-breaking case, claiming her child's life was wrecked by a routine vaccination.

Rachael Coote, now aged 11, has a mental age of six and has constant night-time fits after an injection for mumps, measles and rubella when she was a baby.

Her mother Ann, 41, of Begonia Avenue, Farnworth, is taking international drugs company Smithkline Beecham Plc and Smith Kline and French Laboratories Ltd to the High Court in London, seeking damages of more than £50,000.

Mrs Coote spoke today of her struggle to find justice and says she believes the vaccine Pluserix-MMR was responsible for the fact that her "lively and talkative baby" became a child with severe learning disabilities.

She said: "This is a fight to secure at least some sense of justice for Rachael and hundreds of others like her, too helpless to help themselves. "Medical experts seem to think that its OK to say one in a thousand children may be adversely affected from vaccines.

"But I believe those children should not suffer in silence."

The campaigning mum, who has three other children, has set up a group with other parents who believe their children were affected by the MMR vaccine.

Mrs Coote is particularly outraged that Japan withdrew the Pluserix-MMR drug two years before Britain did in 1992.

Solicitors have filed a writ in the Queens Bench division of the High Court as part of a handful of test cases which could open the floodgates to hundreds of others currently being processed.

But Government medical advisers insist that the MMR vaccine, which is given to 1.2 million children every year, is completely safe.

The row intensified in February last year when British researchers warned that the jab could be linked to autism and bowel disease.

The lawsuits - which could win multi-million pounds payouts - are chiefly targeted at Smithkline Beecham, the manufacturer of an MMR vaccine.

Rachael, who attends Woodside Primary School, was given the drug in 1989 aged 18 months, and was one of the first children to have it. Mrs Coote said: "Before she was a very lively, highly intelligent baby. She could speak and there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

"Within a couple of days she started to get a very high temperature and all the symptoms of meningitis.

"I was frantic.

"I thought she had fallen asleep on my lap but then she turned blue and I realised she had stopped breathing."

Mrs Coote gave her daughter mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and managed to get her breathing again.

After spending a long time in hospital, Rachael was allowed home but she could no longer talk.

She was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy and learning disabilities and Mrs Coote was told she would never learn to talk, or walk. Mrs Coote says only Rachael's own determination and help from experts has given her some quality of life back but she still has up to 30 fits a day.

Mrs Coote said: "The pay out would give me peace of mind that she will be looked after. I won't be here forever.

"This drug has robbed my child of her life and I want to see that she has the best quality of life she can."

Smithkline Beecham Plc spokesman Alan Chandler said none of the writs issued by the families involved had yet been formally served so the company could not comment on the cases.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.