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http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010424/hl/autism_1.html
Tuesday April 24 11:06 AM ET
Federal Panel: No Link Between MMR Shot and Autism
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - A federal expert committee
said Monday it has concluded there is no link between the measles, mumps and
rubella (MMR) combination vaccine and autism.
Parents should not stop vaccinating their children, and
there should be no change in federal or state MMR recommendations, the
committee said.
“No vaccine is 100% safe,” said Marie McCormick, chair of
Harvard Public Health School’s Maternal and Child Health department and chair
of the federal Committee on Immunization Safety Review. But she said, the MMR vaccine
“is as safe as a vaccine can get.”
The 15-member panel, convened by the prestigious Institute
of Medicine (news - web sites) (IOM), did leave open the possibility that the
vaccine might in rare cases cause autism, based on early research showing a potential
link between the measles virus and the developmental disorder. Autism is a neurological disorder that
impairs language development and prevents patients from socializing normally.
The biologic data are “fragmentary,” said McCormick, but
down the road, studies might bear out the link. “Because there is this
beginning study that needs to be worked through, we left the door open,” she
said.
This is the first report issued by the committee, convened
in January. The panel will look at nine vaccine safety issues over the next 2
years.
Panel members, including epidemiologists, pediatricians,
biostatisticians, and public health experts, were strictly chosen to not have
any ties to the vaccine industry.
The MMR report was in response to growing public concerns
that the vaccine might be causing autism or autistic-like symptoms. There has
been a rise in the number of reported autism cases, noted McCormick.
Autistic-like syndromes first appear around age 2, the
same time the MMR is first given, which further muddies the waters.
Public concern was heightened by a 1998 report in the
journal The Lancet. A small number of children referred to a British researcher
for bowel problems also exhibited autism-like symptoms that parents linked to
MMR vaccination.
The researcher did not make the same link, but the
observation raised eyebrows. The IOM panel said The Lancet report was too
limited to either disprove or prove a vaccine-autism link.
In addition to The Lancet study, committee members
reviewed all available epidemiological, animal and human trials that might be
suggestive of MMR causing autism. The panel also interviewed parents of
children with autism, vaccine safety advocates, and held a scientific meeting
with American and British researchers.
Finally, the panel commissioned its own epidemiological
study, which did not result in any positive findings.
But panel member Steven Goodman, a pediatrician and
biostatistician from Johns Hopkins University, noted that most of the published
studies were not designed to look for rare side effects.
The committee said future research could be made stronger
by trying to focus on children who might be at high risk for developing autism.
Panelists also said the government should more clearly communicate risks and
benefits of MMR vaccination.
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