MMR vaccines and autism: Notes for accurate evaluation
Lorenzo Pavone, Alberto Fischer
Autism Spectrum Disorders manifest with persistent problems in social interaction, language and communication delays and restricted patterns of behaviour and activities. This paper examines the article by Wakefield et al., published in «Lancet» in 1998, which created the basis for identifying the potential causal role of vaccines, specifically the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) triple vaccine, in the onset of autism and provoked widespread alarm in parents regarding vaccination procedures. This alarm was subsequently proved to be unfounded, following a series of large-scale in-depth epidemiological studies which excluded the possibility of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism disorder. The extreme usefulness of vaccinations, both in preventing significant damage connected to the direct action of the virus on the individual affected, and in preventing the alarming spread of dangerous epidemics, is therefore confirmed.
Keywords
Autism Spectrum Disorder, MMR vaccine, vaccination complications, epidemiological studies.