MMR – The Autism scare is over.

Dr Andrew Wakefield, one of the principal authors of perhaps the most unnecessary health scare of recent history, has been struck off the General Medical Council for being “dishonest”, “misleading” and “irresponsible” in his research into the MMR vaccine and its purported links to autism.
Wakefield pushed the links between MMR and autism long after more compelling evidence came to light saying that there was no connection. Back in 1998 when his original Lancet article was published, it was not unreasonable to ask for more research; the measles virus was found in the guts of eight autistic children (out of a total group of 12) whose parents believed that the MMR “triple jab” had sparked the condition. Wakefield then aroused scaremongering by calling for the triple jab to be scrapped until “the issue had been resolved”. Despite, only having a miniscule amount of data to back his assertion.
By 2002 there was a compelling block of evidence that the MMR jab did not cause autism. But Wakefield continued to campaign. It has since emerged that he earned £400,000 in fees as an expert witness for campaign groups preparing a lawsuit on behalf of parents of autistic children.
He has also been found guilty, following a fantastic piece of investigative journalism by Brian Deer of The Sunday Times, of unethical research behaviour, needlessly carrying out painful and invasive tests on autistic children, and bribing children at a birthday party £5 each to give blood samples. In the wake of the conflict-of-interest and unethical research findings, the Lancet retracted its original article. The GMC has struck him off for those findings, not for his stance on MMR.
There were several large independent studies carried out across the world, all of which failed to show any link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Notably the 2005 Cochrane Library meta-analysis came back negative and reminded the world that: “Measles, mumps and rubella are three very dangerous infectious diseases which cause a heavy disease, disability and death burden in the developing world … [T]he impact of mass immunisation on the elimination of the diseases has been demonstrated worldwide.”
Perhaps, the single most damning piece of evidence is that MMR was first introduced in Britain in 1988. It was given to hundreds of thousands of children, if there was a link, it would be logical to expect a sudden rise in autism diagnoses. There was none.
The levels of autism were on a steady upward trend prior to 1988. This trend continued in the same trajectory, without a sudden spike post MMR. One explanation of the general rise in cases of autism is the development of new ways of diagnosing the disease, leading to more documented cases.
The media picked up on the potential scandal of the link and published articles which were biased toward the anti-MMR viewpoint. They often ignored the vast array of scientific studies, instead focusing on a few random cases that held no empirical standing. This unbalanced reporting lead to a lot of unsubstantiated confusion and fear for parents of young children.
Between 1998 and 2008, MMR uptake levels dropped from 92 per cent to 73 per cent. It is generally said that 85 per cent vaccine uptake levels are required for herd immunity (the point when diseases cannot spread in a population). A percentage of children are not susceptible to the inoculation, especially those with weakened immune systems, so in the absence of herd immunity, some children whose parents chose to vaccinate will still get the disease. This is why it is not solely a personal choice issue.
In 2008, 10 years after the scare and 14 years after its spread was halted in Britain, measles was declared endemic again in this country. There were a total of 1,348 cases that year, up 36 per cent from the previous year and up a staggering 2,400 per cent from 1998, when there were just 56 cases. About one in 10 measles cases leads to hospitalisation, and in rare cases encephalitis, blindness and even death.
At City Doc we pride ourselves in offering an efficient and professional single MMR vaccine service for children across the UK. Offering parents the freedom of choice to those parents wishing to opt for single mmr vaccines.

We credit the Daily Telegraph for Inspiration for this article.