A PRIVATE health clinic offering single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines in Darlington believes it is to be the target of a national smear campaign.

Two weeks ago a bugging device was found next to an administration desk at Direct Health 2000's company offices in Elton, near London.

In February, its offices in Liverpool were broken into and hundreds of medical records belonging to children who had attended the sessions in Darlington were stolen.

A laptop computer containing details of more than 800 North-East youngsters together with back-up documents were stolen, but surprisingly prescription pads, drugs and money were left behind.

Direct Health 2000 chiefs believe the raid was a highly professional job and that the thieves knew exactly what they were after.

The alarm system was disarmed using a special scanner and then rearmed again once they had left. Surgical gloves were used throughout the theft.

Police have admitted they are baffled by the motives for the break-in or the bug.

Direct Health 2000, however, believes that the information was taken to mount a dirty tricks campaign against it which would discredit its clinics.

Kathryn Durnford, a spokeswoman for the company, told the D&S Times the only people she believed the firm had upset was the Department of Health.

"We can't think of anybody who would want to listen to us or steal children's medical records," she said. "We can only think someone believes that we have powerful information they can use.

"The Government has spent millions on the new vaccine which includes measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox and the new five vaccines for whooping cough, tetanus, polio, diphtheria and hepatitis C, which it plans to introduce next year.

"Perhaps our clinics, which have attracted thousands of parents wanting an alternative to the multiple dose vaccines because they fear they carry side effects, are posing too much of a threat.

"But this is just a vaccine we are talking about, not a nuclear bomb. Why won't the Government allow parents to choose a single vaccine. It just doesn't make sense to go to these lengths."

Ms Durnford added that Direct Health 2000 was the only leading clinic to have a chain of vaccine suppliers and that it was well known for speaking out against the Government over the triple vaccine issue.

She added: "We continue to talk to other pressure groups and doctors to try and piece together their concerns over the side effects of the triple vaccine.

"Once the jigsaw is finished the Government had better watch out because the evidence against multiple dose vaccines will be pretty damning."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: "Any such allegation is totally without foundation.