MMR - No Autism Link Found

5:49am UK, Thursday April 17, 2003

There is no convincing evidence that the triple measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism or bowel inflammation, says a new report.

It follows a review of all available studies by the Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin, which produces independent reports for doctors and pharmacists.

MMR: "Most sensible strategy"

The DTB warned that single vaccines had never been tested in pre-school-age children and advises that the MMR jab is the most sensible strategy for parents.

In 1998, a scientific paper by Andrew Wakefield reported a pattern of bowel inflammation in 12 children who had autism.

Routine

His paper said that in eight of the cases the parents and doctors felt the symptoms of autism began soon after routine MMR immunisation.

However the DTB, which is published by the Consumers' Association, said the evidence from the research was very weak and did not indicate that MMR caused the autism or bowel problems.

It also said that many other large studies had found no evidence of a link between MMR, autism and intestinal problems.

It was extremely unlikely that all these studies missed a link and therefore much more likely that no such link exists, the DTB said.

Vulnerable

The review warned that because single vaccines take longer to provide protection against the diseases, they leave children and other vulnerable people at risk from the infections.

But Jackie Fletcher, national co-ordinator of Jabs, which supports parents of vaccine-damaged children, said: "I don't know why people keep doing new reviews of old material.

"They spend time looking at old studies that were not designed to look for this particular problem."