I shake my head in annoyance at this latest flawed study on the MMR vaccine. Again they did a very selective study and covered their backs. I would like to know who these children are that were studied, the autistic and the non autistic groups. I am amazed and shocked at the amount of money and time that has been wasted with all these superficial non truthful studies. As Wendy said in a previous comment why have they not listened at all, to a parent who is telling the truth about their child's devestating reaction to the MMR jab.

Joan Campbell, Glasgow, Scotland

There are now fifteen separate clinical research papers that link regressive autism with the gut condition ilieal-lymphoid nodular hyperplasia (ILNH). Most of these are peer-review published papers, and they involve many more researchers than just Dr. Wakefoeld. There are five further clinical research papers that link the ILNH gut condition with measles virus. And there are five further clinical research papers that link the measles virus strain in the affected children with MMR vaccine.

The latest study by Baird et al does nothing whatever to displace or refute these findings in any way, primarily because the study did not look at the gut, for (quote) "ethical reasons". In the context of the MMR/autism debate, Baird's study is the equivalent of driving north to Scotland to seek the source of the Thames. She and her colleagues looked in the wrong place, found nothing, and (bizarrely) concluded that MMR was safe. It's not.

In the meantime, the damage children pile ever higher...

David Thrower, Stockton Heath, Cheshire, UK

There's only one study I would be interested in and that's a study of all the children who are believed to have been damaged by the MMR vaccine. Ideally this study would not be headed by David Salisbury and would not involve funding from any pharmaceutical company.

Wendy Pickering, West Sussex, England

We no more trust the scientific community than a politician.Categoric statements that BSE could not transfer to humans etc. etc. Drugs that have been withdrawn due to serious adverse effects after supposed stringent testing and on and on.

J Martin, Manchester, England

Forget Wakefield (he recieved funding from the legal aid board and had a study published by the lancet withdrawn for this reason, the results of the study have been repeated by other researchers)!
This however, is what I call a conflict of interest:
Sir Nigel Davis made a crucial judgement on legal aid in the administrative court of the high court.
His brother, Sir Crispin Davis, 58, is non-executive director of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).He is also chief executive officer of Reed Elsevier, publisher of The Lancet and took up his GSK post just seven months before his younger brother delivered that critical judgement" . The MMR pharmaceutical defendants in the group litigation include SmithKline Beecham and Smith Kline & French Laboratories, which became part of the GSK group in 2000.

joe, london,

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder and cannot be caused by a vaccine, or inflammatory bowel disease. We still do not know why it occurs although recent research has indicated it may be due to a faulty gene/abnormal neuropathology.

The reason for Andrew Wakefield appearing before the GMC is due to the methods he used to obtain blood samples (highly unethical). His initial study involved 12 children, in medical research this is not a sample representative of the autistic population in the UK.

Finally I doubt very much the study that has been published today has not been released 'for propaganda purposes, ahead of the resumption of GMC MMR hearing'. The researchers involved are more than respected in the field of Autism research and would have started the research in response to the claims made by Andrew Wakefield. Which I think you will agree was the right move after such spurious claims.

Please read the published peer reviewed papers.

Louise , Southampton, UK

Most people will not take the time to actually read this piece of research, so find it easy to pick faults.
Also what most people won't consider is all the other evidence which indicates that MMR and autism are unlikely to be linked. They should consider first the implications of what will happen if immunisation levels against measles/mumps and rubella fall. levels of deaths and disabilities would be certain to rise in this case.

amy, Birmingham,

How does this have anything to do with the autism link? I haven't looked at the actual study but from this report they tested antibody levels in children with autism and a control group to find that they both had similar amounts of antibodys and virus levels. So what? I'm pretty sure people don't think autism is caused by the antibodies, even though antibodies historically do not mean immunity.

Nick T., san francisco, california

The study excluded more than 60 per cent of the autistic children in the original study group from review for reason which were not explained. None of the identified autistic children had bowel disease or history of adverse reaction to MMR, the subject of Andrew Wakefield's investigations. This is not a good or useful study, which seems have been held over for several years and is now being released for propaganda purposes, ahead of the resumption of GMC MMR hearing.

John Stone, London, UK