KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 — Yet another major study has shown that there is no link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, amid increasing measles outbreaks around the world.
The Guardian reported that the paper in journal Annals of Internal Medicine, which was written by Danish researchers who had also conducted a key 2002 study to disprove the association between the MMR jab and autism, studied 6,517 autism cases among 650,000 children in the Netherlands who were followed for over a decade.
“We found no support for the hypothesis of increased risk for autism after MMR vaccination in a nationwide unselected population of Danish children, no support for the hypothesis of MMR vaccination triggering autism in susceptible subgroups characterised by environmental and familial risk factors, and no support for a clustering of autism cases in specific time periods after MMR vaccination,” the paper reportedly said.
Anti-vaxxers reportedly believe that some groups of children are more vulnerable to autism after getting an MMR shot. The research reportedly studied children with a sibling who had autism and those with higher risk for autism, like older parents.
The research study also examined if children who previously received other immunisations before MMR had more autism. Anti-vaxxers have also reportedly alleged “clusters” of a regressive form of autism, caused by vaccination, that do not feature in whole population studies.
Researcher Dr Anders Peter Hviid from the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen was quoted saying that all these claims were tested and proven to be false.
Unicef warned last Friday that 98 countries reported an increase in measles last year compared to 2017.
The United Nations children’s agency said Ukraine, the Philippines, and Brazil recorded the highest rise in measles cases. The 10 worst affected countries did not just include conflict-ridden states like Yemen and Venezuela, but also France that has among the worst MMR vaccination rates in Europe and one of the lowest rates of vaccine confidence globally.
