A new study published on Tuesday dealt a fresh blow to accusations that a triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) is linked to autism.
The study, which appears in the Archives of Disease in Childhood published by the British Medical Association (BMA), found no evidence of any abnormal biological response from the shot that could point to a link between the vaccine and autism.
The investigation by British doctors comes nearly 10 years to the day since a paper, appearing in The Lancet, unleashed a health scare that prompted many parents to refuse the MMR jab for their children.
That paper has since been debunked by several other studies and was finally retracted by 10 of its 13 authors in 2004.
"This [new] study really supports the view these are safe vaccines," said David Brown, a researcher at Britain's Health Protection Agency who worked on the study. "The evidence is now so solid there really isn't a need for further studies here."
In 1998, Dr Andrew Wakefield of Royal Free Hospital in London and colleagues sparked a fierce worldwide debate among scientists and a health scare by suggesting the MMR jab caused autism. Outbreaks of all three diseases followed.
The new study is based on antibody tests on blood samples taken from 240 children aged between 10 and 12 in southern England. It looked at 98 children with autism, and two comparison groups -- 52 children with special educational needs but no autism, and 90 children who were developing normally.
All of the children had been given the MMR vaccination, but not all had been given the two scheduled doses.
The researchers looked at three paths that have been shuggested as the various links between MMR vaccine and autism: evidence of persistent measles infection; an abnormal immune response; and an inflammatory bowel disorder called enterocolitis.
They found no association at all.
Other investigations into the MMR scare have similarly found no evidence to support a link.
Two of them have been large-scale population studies -- one among 31,000 children in Japan and 28,000 children in Canada -- while one probe was conducted into a mercury-based chemical, thimerosal, used as a preservative in MMR vaccines but dropped in 1999.
Autism is a neuropsychiatric disorder that impairs a child's ability to communicate and interact with others.
The disorder appears to have been rising massively in developed countries for the past two decades, but experts are divided as to why this should be so.
Some say there may be an environmental cause. Others say that cases of autism are more likely to be detected and reported because the taboo surrounding this condition is receding.
The MMR scare was mainly centered on Britain, but also affected other countries to a lesser degree. In some parts of Britain, the proportion of children getting the vaccination slumped to 60 percent, triggering outbreaks of measles that placed infants' lives at risk.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS