This page is still under construction. I am working on an analysis similar to that I did for thimerosal. I will post it when complete.

 A Summary

The MMR controversy was stirred by a British physician named Andrew Wakefield who was the lead author of a study published in the Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, which claimed that a study of 12 children proved the MMR vaccine causes autism. Unfortunately, the study, which was too small anyway from which to draw a scientific conclusion, was largely rooted in fraud - Wakefield cooked the books to get the desired result. 10 or the 13 other co-authors have since repudiated the study. And, it seems that the study was done in coordination with a group of plaintiffs' lawyers who were suing vaccine manufacturers. No study to date, and there have been dozens, on the MMR vaccine has confirmed Wakefield's theory.

The most determinative study looking at a role for the MMR vaccine in autism involved a situation in Yokohama, Japan, in which from 1988 to 1992, the rate of vaccination for MMR declined dramatically, with no MMR vaccines at all being given in 1993 and several years thereafter. The retrospective study showed that the incidence of autism in children rose significantly from 1988 to 1996, with a particular spike in diagnoses starting the birth cohort of 1993.

Some Links

A good summary of the issues surrounding the MMR vaccine and Andrew Wakefield is here.