http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7333/315/a
BMJ 2002;324:315 ( 9 February )
News
New research on autism and measles "proves nothing"
Lynn Eaton
Controversial new research showing that many children with both autism and
bowel disease have the measles virus in their intestinal tissue has
fuelled further debate over the possible link between the illness
and the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine
although no such link is proved in
the research.
The paper, to be published shortly by the specialist journal Molecular
Pathology (which is co-owned by the BMJ Publishing Group) and
already available on its website (http://mp.bmjjournals.com),
was highlighted by a television programme (Panorama, BBC1,
3 Feb) on the safety of the MMR vaccine.
It looked at tissue samples of 91 children from the Royal Free
Hospital, London, who had both autism and inflammatory bowel disease.
Seventy five of the samples tested positive for the presence of
measles virus in intestinal tissue, compared with five of 70 controls.
Professor John O'Leary, of the department of pathology at Coombe Women's
Hospital, Dublin, who undertook the analysis, emphasised that the
results did not prove that any of the children acquired their
condition as a result of being vaccinated.
"You can't say at the moment that it is linked to the vaccine," he
said. "There are several strains of the virus out there. They
could have picked it up from the wild virus."
But he thought it unlikely that parents would have missed measles symptoms
in their child. "A measles rash is pretty classic," he
said. "The child is irritable and gets a fever. The parents would
probably have spotted that."
He said the paper had been very carefully prepared, because this was such a
major public health issue. "It is fair to say these children
are not representative of autism per se," he said. "It is
a very distinctive subset. The important point we are trying to get
across is that it is a biological association."
Alan Morris, reader in the department of biological sciences, Warwick
University, and author of the journal's commentary on the paper,
described it as "interesting."
"The paper is technically good. The data look fine, but it is looking
at an unusual subset of children and it proves nothing. Its
implications will only come out in the wash."
But one of the paper's authors, Dr Andrew Wakefield, a former senior
lecturer at the Royal Free Hospital and the main advocate for a link
between the MMR vaccine and autism (Lancet 1998;351:637-41[Medline]),
said the study raised important questions.
"We don't know whether it is the vaccine strain or not," he
admitted, "but these children's only exposure has been to the vaccine
strain. None of them had a history of measles. It takes the science
to an entirely new level."
Dr Wakefield worked at the Royal Free Hospital, where the samples came from,
until last November, when he was told that his research was "no
longer in line with the department of medicine's research strategy."
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Rapid Response responses to
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responses
MMR / Autism - Jury still out
John McKellar
bmj.com, 8 Feb 2002 [Response]
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