When was the possibility of a link of autism, inflammatory bowel disease and MMR raised?
1998, 10 years after MMR’s arrival. Andrew Wakefield, then of the Royal Free hospital, London, lit the touchpaper for a five-year crisis of confidence in one of the medical establishment’s most highly prized public health measures. It did not help that cases of autism had apparently risen. The symptoms of the disorder, which causes behavioural and language problems, appear in children at the same age as the first MMR jab is given. An unhappy coincidence, said the Department of Health. More recent research suggested that the apparent rise, which occurred through the 1980s before MMR was introduced and levelled off between 1992 and 1996, was, in fact, down to better and earlier diagnoses. The vast majority of researchers have insisted there is no evidence of a link between MMR and autism, although there is continued interest in the idea that inflammation of the gut might be associated with autism. Why are alternative single vaccines not available on the NHS? The government – and a big ma
