LAST week the British government was forced to launch an advertising campaign
designed to reassure parents that the combined measles, mumps and rubella
vaccine (MMR) is safe for their children. Vaccination has been falling to
dangerously low levels because of continuing fears that MMR can trigger
autism.
The main source of these fears is the work of Andrew Wakefield, a
gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London who has been
investigating autistic children whose parents blame their problems on MMR. “For
MMR, autism, and inflammatory bowel disease, a significant index of suspicion
exists without adequate evidence of safety,” he…
