Time for honest assessment of MMR vaccine's risks

Published on Thursday 7 February 2008 20:45

Another weak scientific research paper is paraded as definitive proof that no link exists between the controversial MMR vaccine, bowel disease and autism (your report, 5 February).

Accompanied by a barrage of well-orchestrated government propaganda this "new" research attempts to draw a line under what must be the longest-running public health scandal ever.

This latest paper is nothing but another layer of deceit in a litany of dissimulation. The wrong children have been tested, the wrong tests carried out, the wrong hypothesis explored and the wrong conclusion reached.

In contrast, parents should note that in 2006 an American medical scientific team (led by Stephen Walker MD, Wake Forest University School of Medicine) clinically examined 275 regressive autistic children with bowel disease (the target group). Of the 82 children tested, 70 proved positive for measles virus in the gut and/or gastro-intestinal tract. All were vaccine strain and none wild virus measles. I quote: "This research proves that in the gastro-intestinal tract of a number of children who have been diagnosed with regressive autism there is evidence of measles virus."

The reaction of public-health supremos in the UK to this confirmation of earlier-published scientific evidence, parental testimony and anecdotal reports from health workers regarding adverse reactions to MMR was the same old, same old: silence, denial, cover-up.

It is time for someone with integrity and compassion in politics or public health to take action to bring this shameful episode to an end.

BILL WELSH

President, Autism Treatment Trust

Stafford Street

Edinburgh