News & Events

FAUST, LARRY
MD, FAAP
PEDIATRIC SPECIALISTS OF NASHVILLE

Health care providers are often asked about the links between autism and immunizations, especially the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine. In fact, one recent survey said that 54% of parents of children with autism thought that autism was caused by immunizations. Up to 1/2 of children with autism will regress or show loss of milestones such as language, social skills or eye contact, and most children with autism show clear signs of autism between 18 and 24 months of age. This is around the same time children get the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which makes parents wonder if there is a connection.

Multiple studies have been conducted and have found no link to vaccines and autism. The Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee has carefully reviewed all of the published scientific literature and concluded that there is no link between autism and the MMR vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tests vaccines for up to 10 years before giving the vaccine a license, and once the vaccine is being used, the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitor its use through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). They look for any problems or associations that might turn up later.

Even though there is no evidence of an association between autism and vaccines, more and more parents are electing to defer vaccinations. As a result, while the autism rates have not gone down, more people had measles infections in the first seven months of this year than during any period since 1996. In Britain, Switzerland, Israel and Italy, measles outbreaks have soared, sickening thousands and causing at least two deaths. From January to July in the United States, 131 measles cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and fifteen people, including four infants, were hospitalized. In the decade before the measles vaccination program began, each year nearly 4 million people in the United States were infected, 48,000 were hospitalized, 1,000 were chronically disabled and nearly 500 died.

Responding to parents’ concerns, manufacturers in 2001 almost entirely removed a preservative containing mercury from all routinely administered childhood vaccines. The incidence of autism has shown no drop. Unvaccinated children (and those around them) are at risk of catching diseases that are dangerous or even deadly.