The MMR Vaccine and Autism

This rather surprised me in the papers this morning.

The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is safe and does not cause autism, the most comprehensive study carried out on the jab has concluded.

Is there anybody out there who seriously thinks it does?

No, that's being unkind I think, my position is clearly influenced by the fact that I actually know something about the background. (Disclosure, I'm paid to write about Simon Baron Cohen's theories elsewhere and given that he's the head of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, obviously some of the knowledge has sunk in.)

The observed rise in autism incidence from the early 1980s onwards has been down to two things.

1) The diagnosis was changed then from being purely what we might call "classic autism" to the autism spectrum, including conditions like Asperger's Syndrome. Change the diagnosis and you'll change the incidence, obviously.

2) If Baron Cohen is correct (and he does seem to be) there's been a rise in assortative mating. This leads to more children with the extreme systemizing brain type which is the definition of autism.

No, it hasn't been the use of mercury in vaccines, which is the current US woo woo scare. (When Japan removed such mercury from childhood vaccins the autism rate continued to climb just the same as everywhere else.) Nor is it the MMR vaccine, which has been the woo woo scare here.

So ca we get back to people vaccinating their children please? We really don't want to return to visions of children dying, being brain damaged, by measles, do we? Or children being born deaf, dumb and blind as a result of their mothers getting rubella while pregnant? Nor, if I might mention something closer to home*, a return to 1% of adult male mumps sufferers becoming infertile?

* No, it's not happened to me: just would be a bit of a bugger if it did, eh?

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