The Lancet retracted the MMR and autism paper

The Lancet issued a press release on Tuesday 2 February 2010 following the GMC's decision on the paper by Wakefield et al in 1998 stating that several elements of the paper are incorrect. "In particular, the claims in the original papaer that children were consecutively referred and that investigations were approved by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record."


The study, published in The Lancet, claimed 8 of the 12 children showed signs of autism within days of receiving the MMR vaccine. The lead author, Andrew Wakefield, suggested that there might be a link between the vacciantion and autism. Although it was a very small study with only 12 children, the findings had caused a massive drop in the uptake of the MMR vaccine and sparked panic over the MMR vaccine around the world.


In the same issue of The Lancet, a commentary " Vaccine adverse events: causal or incidental?" written by 2 American vaccine specialists was also published. They pointed out that Wakefield's paper lacked epidemiological evidence to support the causal association with MMR vaccine and warned that such claim would cause confusion and fear among the media and the public. Unfortunately their message was not picked up by the media and the general public had little access to research articles.


The GMC found that Wakefield had no ethical approval nor relevant qualifications to carry out the tests on children. He also failed to declare that he had received money from a law firm representing the parents to carry out the research. Questions were raised on how Wakefield's research was scrutinised by the Royal Free and UCL Medical School where he worked at the time. A subsequent investigation by The Royal Free Hospital in 2004 reported that Wakefield's work on children was "appropriate". However, The Lancet issued a partial retraction of the interpretation from 10 of the 12 authors except Wakefield and one other author. See "The lessons of MMR" The Lancet, 363, 6 March 2004, pp 747–749 ( full text via Athens)

Some critics say the Lancet retraction is a bit too late while others say that the retraction will not change the situation as the MMR-autism debate continues.

See also: "The Lancet retracts controversial MMR research paper". Independent ,2 February 2010

Fresh research rule out MMR-autism link

Despite a growing amount of evidence that MMR vaccine is safe, many parents are still concerned that MMR causes autism. A few newspapers reported a new study that replicates the methods of the original study conducted in 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield that sparked the controversy of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine.

The new study compared children with gastrointestinal disturbances who also had autism with a control group without autism to see if there was evidence of meales virus RNA in the bowel of children with autism who also have gastrointestinal disturbances. The reserachers said their results did not support the association of autism with persistent measles in the bowel or with MMR vaccination.

Critics say that although this is a stronger study than the Wakefield's with a control group and more cases, it is still small and the findings may still be due to chance. However, this study provides evidence that disproves the MMR-autism link.

Source: " Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study." PLoS ONE 2008; 3(9):e3140

Evidence against leaky gut theory in autism

According to the "leaky gut" theory, vaccines such as MMR can damage the wall of the intestine. causing the production of more peptides which can damage the brain and possibly cause autism.
Advocates of the leaky gut theory have advised autistic children to exclude gluten and casein in their diet.

A new study into the leaky gut theroy examined 65 boys with autism and 158 boys without and found that children with autism did not have more peptides in their urine than the control group. Researchers concluded that peptide urine tests are not helful in the diagnosis or treatment of autism and that further work is needed. They have published their findings in the Archives of Diseases in Childhood.


Source : "Absence of urinary opioid peptides in children with Autism" Arch Dis Child. Published Online First: 12 March 2008

Study said no link between MMR and autism

The Daily Mail and other news source reported a large research, partly funded by the Department of Health and published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, studying the blood samples of about 250 children aged 10 to 12 to see if the MMR vaccination had caused an abnormal immune response that could have triggered autism.

The sample included three groups of children : those with autism, those without and those with special educational needs. The researchers said that they found no difference in meales virus or antibody levels between the two comparison groups and no evidence of bowel symptoms among the autistic children.

The authors concluded there is no evidence for a link between MMR vaccination and autism. But critics said the study had selected the wrong children.

Source :"Measles vaccination and antibody response in autism spectrum disorders". Arch Dis Child. Published Online First: 5 February 2008 doi:10.1136/adc.2007.122937 (full text via Athens)

Fever may improve autistic behaviour

A small but interesting study based on 30 children with autism spectrum disorder(ASD) who had a fever found that more than 80% of these children showed fewer autistic behaviour during the fever compared to the children without fever. The behaviour changes involved longer concentration, more talking, improved eye contact and better relations with other people.

The author said that the results of the study are important because they could help the evaluation of the disorder and shed light on future treatment.

Source: "Behaviors Associated With Fever in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders" Published online November 30, 2007 Pediatrics, in print in the December issue, p. e1386-e1392 (abstract only)