Conservatives are calling for parents to be offered the choice of giving their children separate jabs rather than the single MMR vaccine.
Dr Liam Fox said he still believed MMR offered the best protection against measles, mumps and rubella, but the crisis in public confidence meant it was not being used.
"Labour Health Ministers bear much of the responsibility for this. They have simply failed to grasp the importance of establishing public confidence in the MMR vaccine. The Governments immunisation policy is a public health disaster. They must act now to restore public confidence," he said.
He said his party would support Government efforts to restore public confidence but called for the single jabs to be offered as an alternative.
He told BBC Breakfast: The important thing is that public confidence has fallen to a level, rightly or wrongly, where children are unnecessarily being put at risk. We can't stand back and do nothing at all. In the circumstances I think that, reluctantly, we have to accept that single jabs may be the only way of giving children protection.