Well, what a surprise that known anti-vaccine activists like Jackie Fletcher and David Thrower disagree...

Testing for measles antibodies is a perfectly good approach to determining whether measles is present in the body. Measles in the gut should mean measles antibodies in the blood.

As it happens, the evidence for measles in the gut of autistic children is extremely shaky. Steven Bustin's testimony to the US Congress has blown the experiments that purport to have found it out of the water. See here for more.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3562/

Graham Halford, London,

I sympathise with parents who wish for an explanation for their child's autism. MMR makes a convenient scapegoat. An important study took place in Denmark in direct response to Wakefield's hypothesis. A vast number of children were tracked from birth in 1997 and the (large) number who did not receive MMR had more or less identical levels of autism to the group whose children received MMR. The difference in incidence between the two groups was fractional. So you could reject MMR for your child (as did a friend of mine) and still end up with an autistic child. She came to see her child's autism as genetic in origin.

Dectora, London, UK

Since the MMR was introduced in 1988 thousands of parents have reported severe adverse reactions to this combination vaccine. Serious side effects include neurological damage, acquired autism and convulsions. The Chief Medical Officer had to concede in 1992 that the MMR pre-licence trials were inadequate because two of the three versions of MMR had to be withdrawn as they were found to be causing mumps meningitis. Neurological problems with the mumps element and also with the measles component were known by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) prior to the vaccine's introduction.

In 1997, (prior to Dr Wakefield's Lancet report) JABS representatives presented the Health Minister and her Department of Health (DoH) advisers with details of some 1200 children and asked for them to be clinically investigated to try and determine why these children's lives had changed or ended so dramatically within such a short time of the vaccine being given, regardless of the age of the child when the vaccine was administered. The parents reported that the children had been progressing well, many had had a known reaction to the vaccine within the incubation period and had subsequently been diagnosed with a long-term debilitating illness or had died without any other medical explanation from the treating consultants.

A clinical study was denied and the DoH's propaganda machine swung into action to criticise Dr Wakefield for raising a red flag over the issue.

This new study takes us no further forward in determining whether MMR vaccine is causing regressive autistic-like conditions or other serious neurological problems. It has not investigated children with both a regressive form of autism and a bowel condition nor any that have been known to have reacted to the MMR vaccine. The study looked at antibody levels but not gut biopsies or cerebral spinal fluid.

If one keeps looking in the wrong place one can keep saying there is no scientific evidence.

Jackie Fletcher, Warrington, UK

I read, and re-read, Mark Henderson's article. He states that the strongest claim of the critics of MMR is that they have found measles virus in the guts of regressive-autistic children, and that they have called for further studies of this phenomena. He then goes on to state (correctly) that the Baird study covered in the media last week looked at the blood (the peripheral blood cells) of a sample of children.

But the study did not, repeat not, look at the guts of these children. The study that parents such as myself have been calling for remains undone. The Baird study said on its first page that to take gut biopsies from the sample of children studied would be unethical - so they didn't do it. They looked, instead, at the blood cells.

To my knowledge, no one (amongst MMR's critics) has ever claimed to have found measles virus in the peripheral blood cells. So the Baird study did not address the Wakefield findings. And is thus wholly irrelevant to the MMR safety question.

David Thrower, Warrington, UK

This will be an issue until a cause and cure is found. You talk about a fantasy world of the junk columns. Your article will be just one in an ocean of those yet to come.

The study reqquested was an unbiased look at an unvaccinated population versus a vaccinated population. We have yet to have a credible study done that way.
Also we need to have someone look at genetic predisposition and the effects of the myriad of preservatives and other additives in the jabs.

All I know is my son spoke and the week he got his shots... His last words were:

"My name is Tanner My name is Tanner."

Ever since then I have been changing diapers, staying up nights, worrying about him escaping into the night, and dreaming of that voice I heard over five years ago.... Do I need scientists? Who exactly runs the junk columns? Have you experienced the role of caring for a low functioning autistic?

Find a cure... give us help... Give us hope!

Tim Welsh, Catlin , Illinois