he safety of the MMR jab was again called into question last night after doctors unveiled new evidence linking it to autism and bowel disease.

Tests carried out on 12 children with autism and gut disorders has revealed they all carry the strain of measles found in the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

Experts claim the finding is a key piece of evidence against the triple jab because it confirms the measles virus that infects the inflamed intestinal tissues of children who have autism comes from the vaccine rather than natural measles.

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Last night, they called for single vaccines to be made available immediately. Dr Andrew Wakefield, who first raised concerns about the MMR jab, said: 'Armed with this, and with all the published studies that have come from our investigations, parents must at the very least be given a choice of single vaccines. Not to do so in the face of this data would be negligent in the extreme.

'Sadly, deliberate distortion, obfuscation and political interference have meant that work that could have been completed in two or three years has taken five years.'

The new study by Professor John O'Leary, of Trinity College, Dublin, will be presented at the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland next month. Although it is not known how many of the 12 children had received the MMR jab, it is expected that 95 per cent had had it.

The link between MMR and a new inflammatory bowel disease in children who have autism and bowel problems was first made in 1998 by Dr Wakefield when he was working at the Royal Free Hospital, London. Since then, eight further studies have shown the link.

However, the Government's Chief Medical Officer and the Department of Health insist the MMR jab is safe.

Last week, a review of 2,000 medical studies cleared the injection and the single measles jab of causing autism or bowel disease.

But parents who say their children have been damaged by MMR, and charities backing research into suspected complications, said the report offers no fresh evidence.

Robert Sawyer, chief executive of the charity Visceral, which funds research into the link between MMR and autism, said: 'The deliberate and orchestrated campaign against this research has delayed studies, starved researchers of necessary funds and caused untold suffering to thousands of families whose children have developed autism and gastro- intestinal disease.'