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       JACKSON BONO, now 12, was diagnosed at 2 with autism — the severe, incurable developmental disorder that leaves children unable to form relationships with others. The number of children with autism has risen sharply in recent years.
       Jackson’s parents say they think their son’s condition was caused by vaccination, especially the MMR shot, which is used to prevent measles, mumps and rubella, and is given to 3.5 million kids every year.
       “I was convinced that it had something to do with all of the immunizations that he had had, since that is when he started going downhill,” Jackson’s mother, Laura Bono, said.
       But Monday, an expert panel convened by the prestigious Institute of Medicine concluded there was no evidence linking the MMR vaccine with autism.
       “The advice is that there should be no change in the policies with regard to receiving measles, mumps, rubella vaccine — that it is as safe as a vaccine can get,” said Dr. Marie McCormick of the IOM.
       
Are your child's shots up-to-date?

       The fear of a connection between autism and the shot started with a 1998 British report of 12 suspicious cases.
       “The original paper that these investigators published said, in fact, this is just a hypothesis that bears looking into,” said Dr. Loring Dales of the California Department of Health.

       But it received a lot of coverage on the Internet and in the media.
       Monday’s report cites research on thousands of children that shows no link between the shot and autism, including a major California study published last month. Scientists examined the records of California kindergartners from 1980 to 1994, during which time cases of autism skyrocketed but the percentage of children getting the MMR vaccine was almost constant.
       Experts aren’t certain why autism is on the rise. One possible explanation is that doctors are getting better at diagnosing it.
       But the fear about autism is just the latest example of many parents getting frightened about vaccines that medical experts say are very necessary for the health of individual children — and of the entire community.

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       Young parents, experts say, have no memory of the terrible fear and constant deaths that the country once faced from measles, polio and other diseases.
       “These diseases have gone away, they’re not part of our families, they’re not part of our communities, and with a lack of diseases that vaccines prevent, the focus has now become on the vaccines themselves,” said Dr. Bruce Gillen of the National Network for Immunization Information.
       The IOM report concludes that while science cannot totally exclude the possibility that the MMR vaccine causes a few cases of autism, the overwhelming evidence is that it safely protects millions of youngsters from deadly childhood diseases.
       
       Robert Bazell is the chief science correspondent for NBC News.
       
       

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