Study
found many autistic children with bowel problems
before MMR was licensed
This page is
research from an investigation by Brian Deer for the UK's Channel 4 Television
and The Sunday Times of London into a campaign
linking the MMR children's
vaccine with autism. | Go to part I:
The Lancet scandal | Go to part II:
The Wakefield factor
The Royal Free doctors left many
thinking that a new association between autism
and bowel problems had been discovered and
published in the Lancet, along with Andrew
Wakefield's claimed link with MMR. But, while
this field has been a low priority, reports on
brain disorders and bowel problems date back to
the 1930s, and work by Mary Coleman,
a celebrated US paediatric neurologist,
documented the link in autistic children in 1974:
using reports on symptoms that developed before
MMR was licensed in 1971
The patient
information below was extracted by Brian Deer
from The Autistic Syndromes,
edited by Dr Mary Coleman,
published in 1976. Seventy-eight
autistic children - 64 males, 11 females, with a
median age of 9 - were examined at the Children's
Brain Research Clinic in Washington DC, each
accompanied by a developmentally normal child of
the same age and sex. Patients and controls came
in special buses, each delivering groups of four
children to the clinic, in the week of June
24-28 1974.
Coleman's
interests focused on identifying different types
of autism, but study of her data today -
including the children's ages and the onset of
any gastric problems - reveals a disproportionate
incidence of bowel problems in autistic children
before the MMR vaccine was even licensed in the
US. Coleman's meticulous study reports that "the
presence of constipation or diarrhea in 19 of the
autistic patients and only 5 of the control
children during the newborn period was
significant". As can be seen from
the ages reported in the histories, many of these
children's bowel problems began in the 1960s.
Here are the
anonymised notes on the 19, republished at this
site in the hope that parents of autistic
children with such problems may find this history
of interest.
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