Research needed

I would like to reply to Patti Maguire (Letters, 9 February), who says there is no link bet-ween the MMR vaccine and autism. There is no clinical science that shows that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. In fact, there have never been any independent, long-term safety studies on the MMR vaccine, or any of the vaccines on the market place.

Besides Dr Andrew Wakefield’s work showing measles in the gut, Dr James Oleske of UMDNJ, Newark, New Jersey, and Dr Vijendra Singh, of Utah State University, Logan, Utah, have found elevated measles antibody titers in children with autism.

My son, Eric, received the MMR vaccine at 14 months. He was normal at birth and re-gressed into autism. I know he didn’t get the elevated measles titers from a wild measles virus. I had the wild measles virus when I was younger, and know what it was all about.

We need more research that will follow up on the science of Dr Wakefield, Dr Singh and Dr Oleske, not propaganda and opinion reports that say there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Parents will not buy it.

RAYMOND GALLUP

President

Autism Autoimmunity Project

Iroquois Avenue, Lake Hiawatha

New Jersey, USA