- MMR
JAB SCARE RESEARCH DEALT A 'KILLER BLOW'
The
Sunday Times (London) March 6 2005
Brian
Deer
SCIENTISTS
at two government centres have cast fresh doubt on
the research at the centre of the mumps, measles and
rubella (MMR) vaccination scare.
Their
failure to reproduce the research results in
identical experiments is said to be the last piece in
the jigsaw of evidence that refutes claims made by
Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist.
Wakefield’s
theory that the MMR jab was linked to autism caused
widespread anxiety and led many parents to refuse to
immunise their children.
The
research follows findings released in Japan last week
which showed that diagnoses of autism continued to
soar after a problem halted the use of the triple
vaccine there.
Wakefield
has claimed since 1997 that the ultimate culprit for
some forms of autism is the live measles virus in
MMR. He speculates that this causes a persistent
infection leading to gut and brain damage.
Scientists
at the Health Protection Agency and the National
Institute for Biological Standards and Control took
blood samples from 100 autistic children and compared
them with blood from another 100 children without the
disorder.
They
used three different molecular testing methods and
probed for evidence of genes in the virus.
One
laboratory is understood to have found minute traces
of measles in only one child with autism and in two
children without it. The other laboratory found
nothing.
“This
is hopefully the last nail in the coffin of a
discredited hypothesis,” said Professor Thomas
MacDonald, dean of research at Barts and the London
School of Medicine & Dentistry, who was not
involved in the study. “What it shows is that
the measles virus doesn’t cause autism.”
The
new tests contrast with Wakefield’s research.
Along with Professor John O’Leary, a Dublin
pathologist, he has reported finding persistent
measles virus in 96% of samples from autistic
children at the Royal Free hospital, north London.
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