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Revealed: more evidence to
challenge the safety of MMR
By Lorraine Fraser
(Filed: 16/06/2002)
Scientists have found new evidence to support fears
that the MMR vaccine is causing children to develop autism and bowel
disease, The Telegraph can reveal today.
Specialists from Trinity College, Dublin, have detected
the strain of measles virus used in the MMR jab in tissue samples from
the inflamed intestines of 12 children, who each developed autism after
receiving the injection.
The results will add further weight to claims that MMR
may be responsible for a rapid rise in autism in children over the past
decade.
The Department of Health has repeatedly dismissed
concerns about its safety, saying epidemiological studies have failed to
find a link to autism. It has infuriated worried parents by refusing to
allow the alternative of single vaccines to be prescribed on the NHS.
The work was carried out by Prof John O'Leary, a
pathologist with a record of important discoveries in the field of
virology. Although the finding does not prove that the MRR jab caused
autism and bowel disease in the children, it raises urgent questions
about the vaccine's role in their condition.
None of the children concerned had shown any sign of
disease beforehand. The discovery comes days after the Government seized
on a new study to bolster its claims that the MMR vaccine is safe.
The review, from a commercial company which lists the
Department of Health as one of its clients, did not, however, consider
work published since 1998 by scientists concerned about MMR.
Prof O'Leary's results have been made public in a
precis of a scientific presentation released ahead of a meeting of the
Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland next month. It was
greeted with alarm by parents last night.
Jackie Fletcher, of the parents' group JABS, said the
findings had profound implications and must be taken seriously. "We have
parents shouting that these problems are occuring and what do the
Government and health chiefs do - they keep their heads buried in old
reports not designed to identify these problems," she said. "No one is
listening. Why?"
Ann Hewitt, whose son Thomas, eight, has severe autism
and bowel problems, learned earlier this year that Dr O'Leary had found
measles virus in the boy's gut. She and scores of others who received
the same news now want to know what is going on.
The new results follow a study by Prof O'Leary and his
colleagues, reported in February, in which they found measles virus of
unknown origin in gut biopsies from 75 of 91 autistic children with
bowel problems.
Measles virus was found in only five of 70 normal
youngsters. The team now claims that the new study corroborates their
earlier work linking measles virus with the condition and "indicates the
origins of the virus to be vaccine strain".
Last night Visceral, a charity set up to fund research
into autism and bowel disease, called for MMR to be suspended until
studies establish just what the vaccine-strain virus is doing. MMR,
which contains live measles mumps and rubella virus, was launched in the
UK in 1988 and is given to infants at 12-15 months and four years.
The samples tested in Dublin were from some of nearly
200 youngsters diagnosed with developmental disorder and "new variant
inflammatory bowel disease" by doctors at the Royal Free Hospital, in
London, where Dr Andrew Wakefield worked
until he was ousted last December.
The controversy over MMR and autism began four years
ago when Dr Wakefield and his colleagues reported in The Lancet on 12
children with autistic problems and bowel disease and revealed that the
parents of eight of them had said their children regressed
developmentally after receiving the MMR jab.
While the genetic code of the strain of measles virus
used in MMR differs only minutely from that of the virus responsible for
natural infections, Prof O'Leary and his colleagues were able to use a
commercially produced molecular probe to distinguish the two.
The probe was designed to detect a single difference in
the genetic code of the viruses and to give off a fluorescent signal
when it does so. The MMR row became so heated this year that Tony Blair,
the Prime Minister - who has
refused to say whether his two-year-old son Leo has had the MMR jab
- accused Dr Wakefield and the media of "scaremongering" on the issue.
The chief medical officer, Professor Liam Donaldson,
has indicated he would rather resign than abandon official policy on the
three-in-one vaccine.
Dr Wakefield said last night: "Prof O'Leary and
colleagues have now provided what may prove to be the most important
piece of evidence to date in the case against the MMR vaccine. Parents
must at the very least be given a choice of single vaccines.
"Not to do so in the face of these data and all the
other evidence we have now published would be negligent in the extreme.
It is not acceptable to assume that this vaccine virus is an innocent
bystander if your concern is for the safety of the children."
The Department of Health said that it had no plans to
review the use of MMR. "This study, if true, does not prove that MMR
causes the condition of autism just because the virus is present in the
gut. Critical will be independent testing of the teams' samples, which
has long been awaited," said a spokesman.
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