http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020221001243&query=mmr

Letter: MMR dilemma
The Independent - United Kingdom; Feb 21, 2002
BY ADRIAN STEPHENSON

Sir: The debate on MMR and autism continues. Government health experts grow ever more strident with exhortations to use the only official anti-measles vaccine; concerned parents are neither reassured about, nor encouraged to inoculate with MMR; equally, it is clear that measles itself can cause devastating side-effects in certain people.

Recent research by Dr Vijendra Singh shows a correlation between measles antibodies, abnormal nerve structure in the brain, and autism. Unless further research is performed both on the cause of this finding (whether the virus responsible is "wild", or from vaccine), and on alternative methods for the prevention or treatment of measles, the situation will only get worse. It would seem that there is a possibility that, for a small proportion of vulnerable children, autism might be triggered either by MMR, or by the single vaccine, or by exposure to wild measles strains.

Where does this leave a parent, such as myself, with an older, autistic child and a younger, as yet unvaccinated child? Between a rock and a hard place, that's where.

ADRIAN STEPHENSON

Chinnor, Oxfordshire

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