MORE children are likely to die from measles unless a line is drawn under the discredited link between the MMR vaccine and autism, 30 leading paediatricians said yesterday.

Parents had been “confused and dangerously misled” over the risks of the triple jab against measles, mumps and rubella, they said in an open letter to media, politicians and health professionals.

There is no evidence to support the theory, advanced by Andrew Wakefield, that it can trigger autism or bowel disease, they said. The scare, however, has contributed to the return of measles, which this year killed a child for the first time since 1992.

“The time has come to draw a line under the question of any association between MMR vaccine and autism,” the doctors said. “The UK’s children are in danger of serious illness or death if left unimmunised. The number of confirmed cases of measles has increased dramatically this year.

“A large body of scientific evidence shows no link between the vaccine and autism or bowel disease. Confidence in the safety of MMR had been returning and its uptake slowly increasing. It would be tragic if it is once again shaken by ill-informed reporting of inadequate, preliminary research and supposition.

“It is not too late to avert this predictable tragedy. It is time that due weight is given to the overwhelming body of scientific evidence in favour of the vaccine.”

The letter was organised by David Elliman, of Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London, and Helen Bedford, of the Institute of Child Health in London. Signatories include Patricia Hamilton, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

The letter was prompted by recent reports of a conference presentation in which scientists in the US purported to have found measles virus in the guts of children with autism. Though the scientist behind the work explicitly said that this did not show the MMR vaccine had caused the condition, and the study had no control group, it was widely claimed to be fresh evidence of a link.

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