A new medical study has found no link between childhood immunizations and autism even in the high-risk families.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers led by Dr. Anjali Jain of the Lewin Group, a health care consulting organization, studied more than 95,700 children to find out if those at higher risk for developing autism were any more likely to develop the disability if they had received the MMR (measles mumps rubella) vaccine.
According to the findings, with vaccination brothers and sisters of children with autism were not at any higher risk of developing the disorder compared with brothers and sisters of those without autism.
“Consistent with studies in other populations, we observed no association between MMR vaccination and increased ASD risk among privately insured children,” said the study authors.
“We also found no evidence that receipt of either 1 or 2 doses of MMR vaccination was associated with an increased risk of ASD among children who had older siblings with ASD”.
Although the number of people diagnosed with autism has been increasing dramatically since the 1980s, to as many as one in 68 children in the United States, its causes remain not well understood.
It is alleged that the rise is partly due to changes in diagnostic practice, and the question of whether actual rates have increased is unresolved. Two doses of MMR vaccine are currently recommended for children in the United States with the first at age 12 to 15 months and the second at age 4 to 6 years.
“Although a substantial body of research over the last 15 years has found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), parents and others continue to associate the vaccine with ASD. Parents cite vaccinations, especially MMR, as a cause of ASD6 and have deferred or refused vaccinations for their children as a result. Lower vaccination levels threaten public health by reducing both individual and herd immunity and have been associated with several recent outbreaks of measles, with most cases occurring among unvaccinated individuals.”
Fears and rumors about the link between MMR vaccine and autism started after paper published in The Lancet by Andrew Wakefield and others in 1998, claiming a study of 12 children mostly with ASD soon after they received the vaccine. It was discovered later that Wakefield had obtained funding from litigants against vaccine manufacturers and the data in the study had been falsified to reach a predetermined conclusion. The paper was retracted by The Lancet.
