A Brief History of the MMR and Autism

Published January 28, 2009 @ 05:00PM PT

a toddler receiving a shot in its right arm In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and 12 others published a paper that suggested that a vaccine called the MMR (measles mumps and rubella) had a link with a new condition they described as giving kids bowel problems and autism.

The results were predictable. The UK media fell over themselves to report on the MMR vaccine causing autism.

Wakefield's new hypothesis was that after the MMR was injected, it went to their gut and caused gastric problems - a condition he called "autistic enterocolitis" - after that it travelled to the brain where it caused or triggered autism.

He based this hypothesis on his 1998 study which looked at 12 autistic kids and in 8 of them alleged a connection.

What he did was send his gut samples off to a lab called Unigentics run by John O'Leary who used a technique called PCR to examine Wakefield's samples and said that it showed the children's symptoms were caused by the MMR because the PCR technique showed there was vaccine strain measles virus in the gut samples.

Nine years later in 2007, the Autism Omnibus hearings are taking place in the US. These are legal hearings wherein parents who thought their children were made autistic by vaccines grouped together to sue the US government and vaccine manufacturers.

Two people made very strong impressions on how weak the MMR hypothesis was. The first was Stephen Bustin. The second was Nick Chadwick who actually worked under Wakefield when he wrote his '98 paper.

Professor Stephen Bustin is the world's foremost PCR expert. Bustin uses PCR every day in his work, he has 14 papers in the peer reviewed literature on PCR and is the author of the "A to Z of Quantitative PCR" which is considered "the bible" of PCR.

Bustin examined Unigentics in great detail and found that the lab made a fairly basic error of science when looking at Wakefield's samples:

"Now, these are from samples that should have been discarded according to the SOP from Unigenetics because there was no GAPDH present, i.e., the RNA is degraded. Now, if this is degraded RNA yet I'm getting the same Cts for my F-gene target this can't be RNA because it would have been degraded.

"That's what the GAPDH showed me. Now, if it isn't RNA it has to be DNA. If it is DNA it can't be measles virus it has to be a contaminant."

In other words, the samples Wakefield provided to Unigentics were useless because Unigenetics own documented lab procedure says they were. But they used them anyway. The results were a bombshell. Using O'Leary's procedure the results cannot actually be RNA. If its not RNA then it must be DNA and if its DNA then it can't be measles virus because measles virus doesn't exist as DNA.

What the Unigentics lab detected in Wakefield's samples were contaminants. There's no way that Unigentics could possibly have been detecting measles virus.

This was backed up by Chadwick who checked Wakefield's work (at his request). He also did a PCR test.

Q. What results did you receive from the gut biopsy materials for measles RNA?
A. They were all negative.
Q. They were always negative?
A. Yes. There were a few cases of false positive results, which I used a method to see whether they were real positive results or false positive, and in every case they turned out to be false positive results. Essentially all the samples tested were negative.
Q. Did you inform Dr. Wakefield of the negative results?
A. Yes. Yes.

So not only are the samples Wakefield provided useless, the testing he asked Chadwick to perform showed they were useless. He knew this. And yet he went ahead anyway.

Its also worth noting that every subsequent piece of MMR science (save one unpublished poster presentation) went through Unigenetics lab and went through the same process as Wakefield's.

In order to find possible reasons for Wakefield sending material he knew was useless to a lab that screwed up we need to go back to 1997. One year before the Lancet paper implicating MMR was published.

In '97, a journalist called Brian Deer found out that Andrew Wakefield had filed a patent application.This application was for a rival vaccine that could potentially replace MMR. Deer alleges that if MMR could be framed as a bad guy then the NHS (and maybe the world's health services) would drop MMR and this new vaccine could step in. As the patent holder for this new vaccine, Wakefield could get very rich says Deer.

In the UK, confidence in vaccines collapsed. Between the years 97/98 to 2004/05 MMR uptake dropped by 10%. In 2006 and again 2008, a child died of measles.

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Comments (23)

Thank you for the is concise history. I always try to explain this to people who ask my opinion on the matter. This will be forwarded to a few of them.

Posted by Karen D on 01/28/2009 @ 05:28PM PT
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Don't forget the other authors' retractions and the fact that the original paper itself stated that it had demonstrated no link.

Posted by Emily Willingham on 01/28/2009 @ 06:58PM PT
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Please check out the below link to Dr. Wakefield's more recent work.

http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/0405-conf-awakefield.htm

Posted by Amom whoblamesva... on 01/28/2009 @ 07:02PM PT
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And regarding Wakefield being called before the General Medical Council and facing being removed from the medical register in the UK in regard to “serious professional misconduct relating to investigations undertaken on 12 children between 1996 and 1998":

http://www.autismvox.com/wakefield-on-medical-ethics-im-perfectly-willing-to-accept-my-understanding-was-wrong/

Ars Technica also had this post on Wakefield not revealing that he was being paid by the law firm who was suing vaccine manufacturers:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2007/01/6446.ars

Posted by Kristina Chew on 01/28/2009 @ 07:35PM PT
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A new article was posted in "Scientific American Mind" today by Paul Raeburn. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-father-factor I highly recommend it if you want to know the cause of much non-familial autism.

Posted by Les Feldman on 01/28/2009 @ 07:53PM PT
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I can barely read past the headline of that "article," given that autism is demonstrably not a "mental illness" but a developmental disorder.

Posted by Emily Willingham on 01/28/2009 @ 08:13PM PT
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They aren't just talking autism. If you do magange to get past the headline, just a couple of lines down they mention schizophrenia and bipolar. The former before autism.

Also, disease and disorder have a lot of usage overlap. If you want to get up in arms about disease (power to you) probably should curtain using "disorder" as well. :)

Posted by Dwight F on 01/29/2009 @ 11:33AM PT
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Make that "curtail". I assume you made the jump from "illness" to "disease" as that is even more obvious?

Posted by Dwight F on 01/29/2009 @ 11:39AM PT
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Thoughtful House. Where's a rock when I need one?

Posted by Emily Willingham on 01/28/2009 @ 08:13PM PT
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I do not have a scientific background so I will not chime in here with an analysis of scientific data. What fuels and re-fuels the fire in the vaccine debate is the actual experiences of families and their voice comming together- it will never go away. Some parents that I know watched with their own eyes as their child had an intense reaction from the MMR (convulsions in one case, fever of 106 in another) and then their child was completely nonverbal within a week. Before that their child had no signs of autism. To these families, scientific papers will never be as powerful as what they saw before their eyes.

Posted by Kendra Kellogg on 01/29/2009 @ 12:58AM PT
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Many thanks Kendra for your comments about families who have witnessed their child regress into autism after having their first MMR or second. Please click on to the link below to hear a recent appalling story and for some reason no comments have been posted. I wonder why.
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Posted by Joan Campbell on 01/29/2009 @ 01:49AM PT
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Hi Kev!

Posted by jypsy norman-bain on 01/29/2009 @ 04:11AM PT
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Given the childhood vaccine schedule, coupled with the fact that a number of developmental disorders manifest at specific timepoints in infant and early child development, it is inevitable that there will be a temporal correlation between a vaccine and the onset or appearance or recognition of symptoms. Inevitable. Rhetts has an onset right around a set of shots. Tuberous sclerosis, depending on the severity...ditto. Others that also are "strictly" genetic show up at the timing of different vaccinations. We've identified their genetic correlates so no one's calling foul on the vaccines in those cases. Autism is complex, it's a syndrome, it's a spectrum. That implies involvement of multiple pathways and likely many many genes. It may be that some cases of what we're calling autism are actually vaccine reactions, although that has not been demonstrated, but in general, this suite of disorders we call autism is not related to vaccination.

Recall is famously inaccurate.

Posted by Emily Willingham on 01/29/2009 @ 06:01AM PT
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Kendra
You are right on with your comment.Not only did we witness our child get a fever after MMR #2 we saw a drastic reduction in speech and eye contact.A live blood cell analysis show by our DAN doctor showed us what the vaccine schedule did to our child, heavy metals, candida yeast and other assorted chemicals that could only come from the jabs he got.I feel sorry for the folks who administer these jabs as I wonder how they will feel knowing that they are the shills that the pharma cows endeavor to recruit and carry out their dirty work.Sites like leftbrainrightbrain spread horrible propaganda.They are all misinformed and misdirected.The can't tell you what causes Autism but they can tell you what doesn't.Twisted logic at best.Please go find that rock and crawl back under it.

Posted by B. Campaigne on 01/29/2009 @ 06:29AM PT
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B. Campaigne: DAN doctor, and you're talking about being misinformed and misdirected? And about "propaganda" and "shills"? OK.

A "live blood cell analysis"? Snort. Yeast? They live in us and on us at all times. "Assorted chemicals" from the "jabs" he got? Heavy metals? Ya mean, like CALCIUM? We've all got heavy metals in us. Have you looked up the tox on these and the ppm or ppb and how those are detected?

My son showed a drastic reduction in speech and eye contact at the time that the MMR is scheduled....and he hadn't gotten the shot yet.

It's just amazing--do you all have a little Black Book of Antivax Rhetoric that you share among yourselves? You all say exactly the same thing. It's practically like a religion, false belief system, faith without evidence, and everything. Your post hits all of the buttons these shills want you to hit: Conspiracy, a feeling of superiority to the "sheep" who blindly follow the norm instead of "taking risks" for their children as all good martyr parents should, intellectually blind people who can't see a shill when it's right in front of their faces, people so ignorant and stupid that they're not worth your time and should go crawl under a rock somewhere. People soooooo much dumber than you with their being so sadly, pitifully misinformed and misdirected--and then you toss in the requisite references to general "heavy metals" and that devil "yeast," and "assorted chemicals..." Everything you've said is boilerplate proselytizing that shows up over and over and over again. Really...do you all get a pamphlet or something?

Posted by Emily Willingham on 01/29/2009 @ 07:44AM PT
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Take a look at the MMR insert -

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

"Excretion of small amounts of the live attenuated rubella virus from the nose or throat has occurred in the majority of susceptible individuals 7 to 28 days after vaccination."

OK - Merck's not going to admit that there are any risks associated with this "shedding". But, what if - hypothetically - there are? What if exposure to this "shedding" of vaccinated individuals can harm others? Since people won't be able to prove that they were harmed by other people's "shedding", then it "can't happen"?!?

Also, the insert states - "Experience from more than 80 million doses of all live measles vaccines given in the U.S. through 1975 indicates that significant central nervous system reactions such as encephalitis and encephalopathy, occurring within 30 days after vaccination, have been temporally associated with measles vaccine very rarely. In no case has it been shown that reactions were actually caused by vaccine...However, the data suggest the possibility that some of these cases may have been caused by measles vaccines." Wow - did Merck actually admit that their vaccine may cause encephalitis and encephalopathy?

I've talked with a number of parents whose children have suffered from encephalitis. They are typically remarkably like our children who have autism. It's odd how similar their symptoms are to many that our kids have experienced in the past or are currently suffering from. Here's a link to learn more about encephalitis -

http://www.encephalitis.info/TheIllness/Causes.html

Now, I'm not trying to "prove" anything. So, it's going to get old to be called a "shill"...again. I think I got called that on a different post. But, what's with the word "shill" anyways? It sounds funny - I guess, thanks for the humor. My son's looking at me curiously like - "why all the laughing". Anyways, I would share my "pamphlet" with you...if another parent would share their's with me. I'm really curious about what it must say - if not having one makes people say "shill" a lot - I'm hoping someone will get it to me fast. I'm not a name-caller...so, I'll need to be clued in on the antidote quickly. "Shill" - omigosh, I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. And no, I'm not laughing at anyone. I really just think "shill" is a funny word. Ok...sorry to have wasted so much time on the word "shill"...hehe...omigoodness...sorry again...

Posted by Jody Mack on 01/29/2009 @ 04:37PM PT
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Sorry...I was called a "conspiracy theorist", not a "shill"...on the other post. I just wanted to make that correction, before someone else corrected me.

Unfortunately "conspiracy theorist" just doesn't have the same ring as "shill" or even "shrill". Not upsetting...just not too funny either.

Posted by Jody Mack on 01/29/2009 @ 05:03PM PT
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@Emily Willingham You are posting interesting viewpoints here, but I would love some clarification because you are using complex terminology. One of your various ideas is that there may be a reaction to the MMR that resembles autism? And another is that the onset of a purely genetic based autism may be hurried a bit by the the vaccine schedule?

One of my big questions in the vaccine issue is why research into any ideas such as yours are not very important. If the later of your premesis is true (forgive me if I am misunderstanding it), then families would benefit from a safer vaccine that would allow the child and the family to grow into the natural course of the onset without the vaccine's involvement.

Correlation to autism or not, why are vaccine companies resistant to greatly improving and "greening" their product? How could it possibly hurt, just in case. When in our society's production history did companies believe that even small traces of toxic additives are part of the ball game? Toxins are not healthy- period. When in the scientific community did they accept that toxin traces are like wise fine if they do not scientifically point to any widspread proven diagnosis?

Posted by Kendra Kellogg on 01/30/2009 @ 12:53AM PT
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>> When in our society's production history did companies believe that even small traces of toxic additives are part of the ball game?

Since at least the inception of the field of toxicology nearly 200 years ago? With the advent of modern analytic laboratory methods it has effectively become a requirement that we allow it least we become entirely paralyzed by inaction.

Posted by Dwight F on 01/30/2009 @ 01:58AM PT
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In a sense, this post has much the same ring to it as a history of the principles of bouyancy and the arcane...

But that's beside the point (well, it provides some good perspective, but still); thanks for writing this up. I hadn't up to this point. Anyway...

@Kendra "Toxins are not healthy- period."

Umm... no. You do realize that oxygen is considered a toxic element? Now, tell me that oxygen isn't healthy. Doesn't work, does it? And even the ostensibly dangerous stuff in small enough doeses doesn't necessarily harm.

I don't think that kind of knowledge requires a medical degree...

Cliff

Posted by Cliff Schumacher on 01/30/2009 @ 05:48AM PT
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@Dwight F Just to clarify, I was not talking about the scientific community having to use toxic materials- forgive me if my questions came accross in that direction. They were more directed at the scientific community in hopes that they would take a more cautious stance towards chemicals in products to begin with.

Posted by Kendra Kellogg on 01/30/2009 @ 11:33AM PT
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@Dwight F Just to clarify, I was not talking about the scientific community having to use toxic materials- forgive me if my questions came accross in that direction. They were more directed at the scientific community in hopes that they would take a more cautious stance towards chemicals in products to begin with.

Posted by Kendra Kellogg on 01/30/2009 @ 11:33AM PT
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@Dwight F Just to clarify, I was not talking about the scientific community having to use toxic materials- forgive me if my questions came accross in that direction. They were more directed at the scientific community in hopes that they would take a more cautious stance towards chemicals in products to begin with.

Posted by Kendra Kellogg on 01/30/2009 @ 11:33AM PT
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Kev is an autism and manic depression advocate. He is married with three kids of whom his middle child is autistic. He blogs at Left Brain/Right Brain.