'No link' between MMR and autism

The University College's Royal Free Hospital in London, UK, which lastyear declared that there may be a link between the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and a syndrome characterized by autism and inflammatory bowel disease (Marketletter March 16, 1998), have found in a new study that the rate of autism is no higher among children inoculated with the vaccine than those who do not receive the shot.

A different group of researchers at the hospital, who identified 498 children with autism from government health registers, found no evidence to support a connection with the MMR vaccine. While the study showed the number of cases of autism has been increasing since 1979, there was no sign of a sharp rise following introduction of the vaccine in 1988.