A study of 96,000 children shows that the chances of a child developing autism is the same whether they receive the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine or not.
The study looked at insurance claims for children born between 2001 and 2007. It found 0.7% of unvaccinated children developed Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) while 0.5% of children who were vaccinated did. Dr. Bryan King, program director of the Autism Center at Seattle Children’s Hospital, said the numbers show “the risk of ASD recurrence in families does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.”
A 1998 study published in the journal Lancet that linked autism to the vaccine has been debunked and withdrawn by the publication. Every study since has shown no link between the two.
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The latest study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and funded by The National institute of Mental Health, looked specifically at a high risk group of children — those who had an older sibling with autism — and still found no link between ASD and the MMR vaccine.
“These findings indicate no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and ASD even among children already at higher risk for ASD,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
(WATCH a Wall Street Journal interview below, or READ the full story in Reuters)
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