Scientists fear MMR link
to autism
By SALLY BECK, Mail on Sunday
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html
Dec 2006
New American research shows that there could be a link between the
controversial MMR triple vaccine and autism and bowel disease in children.
The study appears to confirm the findings of British doctor Andrew Wakefield,
who caused a storm in 1998 by suggesting a possible link.
Now a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina
are examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease - and of the
82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus.
Last night the team's leader, Dr Stephen Walker, said: 'Of the handful of
results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain and none are wild measles.
'This research proves that in the gastrointestinal tract of a number of children
who have been diagnosed with regressive autism, there is evidence of measles
virus.
'What it means is that the study done earlier by Dr Wakefield and published in
1998 is correct. That study didn’t draw any conclusions about specifically what
it means to find measles virus in the gut, but the implication is it may be
coming from the MMR vaccine. If that’s the case, and this live virus is residing
in the gastrointestinal tract of some children, and then they have GI
inflammation and other problems, it may be related to the MMR.'
The 1998 study by Dr Wakefield, then a reader in gastroenterology at the Royal
Free Hospital in North London, and 12 other doctors claimed to have found a new
bowel disease, autism enterocolitis.
At the time, Dr Wakefield said that although they had not proved a link between
MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism, there was cause for concern and the
Government should offer the option single vaccines - instead of only MMRs -
until more research had been done.
The paper - and the confused interpretation of its findings - caused uproar and
led to many parents withdrawing their co-operation for the triple jab. Ten of
the paper's authors also signed retractions on the interpretation but stood by
the science.
This is the second independent study to back up Dr Wakefield. In 2001 John
O'Leary, Professor of Pathology at St James's Hospital and Trinity College,
Dublin, replicated his findings.
Last night Dr Wakefield said: 'This new study confirms what we found in British
children and again with Professor O'Leary. The only exposure these children have
had to measles is through the MMR vaccine.
'They were developing normally until they regressed. They now suffer autism and
bowel disease.
'The Department of Health and some of the media wanted to dismiss our research
as insignificant. The excuse was that no one else had the same findings as us.
What they didn't say is that no one else had looked.'
A spokesman for the Department of Health said they had not read the American
report, but added: 'MMR remains the best form of protection against measles,
mumps and rubella.'