Dr Andrew Wakefield was, and so far as I know still is, a clever and gifted doctor who was blessed, or cursed, with an overwhelming interest in his patients’ welfare. His suggestion of a possible link between MMR (the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination) and a gut problem distinctive to autism hasn’t yet been supported by much convincing research.

The observation, whether it eventually turned out to be valid or not, was worth looking into. Dr Wakefield is not only a very traditional doctor but also a budding medical scientist. The perhaps premature publication of his initial research has resulted in vilification without inquisition. The Government was right to be worried lest parents without substantial evidence rejected MMR. The chances of babies suffering from severe complications of measles if unvaccinated was much greater than the unlikely, even remote, chance of developing autism from whatever cause.

Dr Wakefield’s opponents were wrong to support a personalised witch hunt more suited to the political world of the Whip’s office than a medical research team. Nor, as I have witnessed, should they have tried to repress research that might have proved Dr Wakefield as wrong as most of us expect and hope that he was.

Only a parent stupid enough not to worry about their child and its future isn’t concerned about measles and the MMR vaccination. Older doctors, who remember the occasional child with irreparable damage from an attack of measles, share an anxiety that measles vaccination in some form or other would cease to be available if the concern over MMR persisted.

Then there could be a return to the time when children, as part of growing up, had to face an attack of measles, which was always disturbing and sometimes dangerous. I am part of the last generation of doctors brought up in a medical practice in which the occasional death from measles was considered to be a sad but inevitable part of village life. These children’s deaths overshadowed the lasting damage done to others’ hearing, sight, intellect or the suffering later in adolescence of a form of fatal dementia not unlike mad cow disease.

Another fear of parents is that of autism. Few childhood disorders cause such emotional turmoil for its parents and family disruption. Dr Wakefield’s suggestion that more research was needed to exclude a possible link between measles vaccination and one of the disorders in the autism spectrum struck terror into parental hearts. Were they being asked to choose between the risk of measles and the risk of autism? After consulting a very approachable and nondogmatic Dr Wakefield I took his advice and recommended that my grandchildren should be vaccinated with MMR. His opinion at that time was that if there wasn’t a history of auto-immune disease or an inexplicable mental retardation in the family, he would still recommend the MMR vaccination.

It is easy to suggest that every effort is made to provide help for families with an autistic child so that they can follow medical advice to live as normal a family life as possible. This is a political platitude as doctors know from experience that this aim is impossible to achieve. Autism was precisely defined by Leo Kanner, an American child psychiatrist, 60 years ago. It affects boys four times as often as girls. The good news for parents isthat the occurrence of autism, as described by Dr Kanner, has nothing to do with the child’s up-bringing or parental personality but everything to do with its genes. This usually accepted belief is supported by studies of identical twins, family histories and gene research.

The autistic child may be born with symptoms and can be unresponsive to the loving gestures of parents. It doesn’t show much interest either in its first playthings or family life around it. Within a few months it not only fails to respond to loving gestures but turns its face away and doesn’t cuddle up to a parent. It is slow to talk and when, eventually, it does, to some extent its speech includes idiosyncratic mannerisms characteristic of the condition.

Some autistic children have a normal first few months but between the ages of 1 and 3 they develop the classic symptoms of autism. The most obvious of these, other than their difficulty in talking, is their lack of empa-thy and attachment to those who are looking after them.

In addition, rather than pointing to what they want, they tend to lead their carer to it. They have a love of repetitive activities and some have a precocious ability to shine in a single skill, such as doing jigsaws. Later, when they grow older, they may develop an inordinate attachment to routine or to an inanimate possession. If their treasured object is lost or their timetable slightly altered, they can become extremely upset and fly into rages.

Much of the recent apparent increase in the incidence of autism is likely to be because its definition has been extended. Some authorities describe the autism of Kanner as true autism, and other conditions with some autistic symptoms as being one of the autism spectrum disorders.