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I've been trying my best to stay out of this, because it's obvious
flame-bait, but as a public health physician who works on the epidemiology
of vaccine-preventable diseases (and a celiac), I cannot in good conscience
remain silent. There's been a LOT of misinformation bandied about on this
list about the purported "connection" between MMR vaccination and autism.
Here's what Paul Offit, the head of pediatric infectious diseases at the
Philadelphia Children's Hospital has to say on the subject in his book for
parents:

"MYTH: Vaccines cause autism
In 1998, a study published in the English journal Lancet reported that
autism might be caused by the combination measles,  mumps,  rubella (MMR)
vaccine. The report claimed that children given the vaccine developed
inflammation of their intestines that preceded the development of autism.
Based on this study,  The Medical Research Council of  Britain set up a
panel to investigate a possible link between MMR vaccine and autism.

   A subsequent study showed that there was no association between vaccines
and autism. The two studies were very different in the quality and analysis
of data. The second study (disproving an association between vaccine and
autism) evaluated 500 children; the first study evaluated only 12. The
second study included statistical methods adequate to determine whether MMR
caused autism; the first study did not. The second study carefully evaluated
the effect of MMR when first introduced into Britain on the incidence of
autism; the first study did not. So, in short, the second study was much
better than the first study and enabled one to conclude that MMR and autism
were not linked."

[Source: Offit, Paul A., MD and Bell, Louis M., MD, Vaccines: What Every
Parent Should Know, Revised Edition, 1999, IDG Books, pp. 112-113]

This is NOT a matter of opinion where experts disagree. One the one side you
have a "researcher" whose study, although published in LANCET, has not been
able to be replicated by others and has been discredited and retracted by
his institution, on the other is the entire legitimate scientific community.

A recent measles outbreak in the Netherlands led to many hospitalizations
and several deaths in unvaccinated children. A similar outbreak in
Philadelphia in the early 1990s was spread from unvaccinated children to
children too young to have been vaccinated (one of whom died). By choosing
not to vaccinate your children, you're not only risking their lives, you're
also risking the lives of your neighbors' children!

Perrianne Lurie, MD, MPH, FACPM
Harrisburg, PA, USA
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