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Researchers from the Public Health Laboratory Service have found no evidence that the triple MMR jab overloads a child's immune system.

It is the latest attempt to try and reassure thousands of parents who have refused to allow their children to be given the jab.

The PHLS researchers have concluded that not only is there no evidence of harm caused, but the injection may actually protect children from other viruses too.

But campaigners against the vaccine have branded the study "not worth the paper it is written on".

They support the case put forward by a small number of medical experts, who believe that exposure to the three live viruses (measles, mumps and rubella) could lead to persistent viral infections and even bowel problems or autism.

Jackie Fletcher, national co-ordinator of JABS, a support group for children damaged by vaccines, criticised the study, saying it had only looked at a three-month period, which she said was not long enough for some immunity problems to emerge.

JABS claims the parents of as many as 2,000 children feel they had been changed in some way by the triple jab.

Her words were backed up by a spokesman for Autism Research Campaign for Health, Martin Hewitt.

ARCH was formed by the parents of autistic children to campaign for research into the causes of autism and the link to inflammatory bowel disease.

Mr Hewitt said: "The paper is an attempt to challenge the hypothesis - attributed to Andrew Wakefield and colleagues - that MMR overloads a child's immune system contributing to chronic disease such as inflammatory bowel disease and autism.

"The paper does not study the role of MMR in causing autism and inflammatory bowel disease. Instead it studies the presence of other diseases following the MMR. It is testing the wrong hypothesis."

The authors of the new study said their work showed that MMR did not suppress the immune system significantly. If it did there should be more cases of infection in the period just after children had the jab.

The researchers who carried out the study looked at data from hospitals in the former Thames region in south England from April 1991 and March 1995.

They monitored all cases of serious bacterial infection, such as septicaemia and meningitis and pneumonia, among one to two year olds admitted to hospital within three months of the MMR jab.

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