WIRE: 09/24/2001 

Single-Dose Alternatives to MMR Unproven: Report

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/reuters20010924_205.html


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After a 1998 UK study suggested the 
measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine might be linked to bowel 
disease and 
autism, some parents began seeking an alternative: single vaccines 
for 
each disease, given at different times.

But a new report cautions that these single vaccines are unproven in 
their effectiveness and may present a danger because they are not 
licensed by the UK government.

In the September issue of Archives of Disease in Childhood, London 
researchers review the evidence on MMR safety. They conclude that 
"mounting evidence" shows no link between MMR vaccination and the 
risk of 
autism or inflammatory bowel disease.

"While the final decision rests with the parents, the evidence of the 
safety and efficacy of MMR vaccine is so overwhelmingly conclusive 
that 
health professionals should have no hesitation in recommending its 
use," 
write Dr. David A. C. Elliman, of St George's Hospital, and Dr. Helen E. 
Bedford, of the Institute of Child Health.

The MMR vaccine was introduced in the UK in 1988 and has been used 
in the 
US for nearly 30 years. Since its appearance, "measles, mumps and 
rubella 
have become rare diseases," Elliman and Bedford note.

But a well-publicized UK study in 1998 found a possible connection 
between MMR vaccination and autism in 12 children with autism and 
bowel 
disease. One of the researchers was quoted in media reports as 
saying the 
three-in-one MMR vaccine could potentially overwhelm the immune 
system 
and that a safer approach would be to give the vaccines separately 
at 
yearly intervals. However, Elliman and Bedford point out, other 
investigators on the study said they "emphatically" endorsed current 
MMR 
recommendations.

Since then, studies in the UK, Sweden and US have refuted the MMR-
autism 
theory, and a US federal panel recently concluded that there is no 
link.

Still, Elliman and Bedford write, some parents continue to request 
single 
vaccines. They advise doctors to inform these parents of the 
unproven 
effectiveness and possible hazards of these vaccines.

"A regimen of giving single measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine 
separately to preschool children has never been used anywhere in the 
world," the researchers write. "We therefore have no research 
evidence 
about the safety and effectiveness of the single vaccines used in 
this 
way, as well as no experience."

What's more, they point out, there is little quality control of the 
single vaccines. One single mumps vaccine that has been given to 
some 
children--and is no longer used in MMR vaccines--is linked to a 
small 
increased risk of meningitis. Another mumps vaccine, called Rubini, 
has 
"very poor effectiveness," according to Elliman and Bedford.

The authors call it a "backward step" to give children single doses of 
the vaccines--a move that would also require children to have six 
shots 
instead of two MMR shots.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Elizabeth Miller of London's Public 
Health Laboratory Service agrees that proof of the MMR's safety is 
"overwhelming."

She adds, however, that questions on vaccine safety, which will 
"inevitably continue to arise," should be fully investigated.

SOURCE: Archives of Disease in Childhood 2001;85:271-274.

***

Ok, so if  "single vaccines are unproven in their effectiveness and 
may 
present a danger", how does mixing 3 of them together make them 
safe?  Am 
I missing something?  Acutally if you remember....

Chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) of the House Committee on Government 
Reform 
said the analysis was a "disservice to the American people." The 
study, 
which was published April 23, 2001 said that the universally used 
preventive shot apparently doesn't cause the incurable brain 
disorder.

Still, the panel of experts assembled by the National Academy of 
Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM) couldn't completely rule out the 
link between the disease and the vaccine in a small number of 
children. 
The ambiguity of the findings infuriated Burton, who is holding two 
days 
of hearings this week on the skyrocketing rate of autism in the 
United 
States.

"You put out a report to the people of this country, saying the 
[MMR vaccine] doesn't cause autism ... and then you've got an out in 
the 
back of the thing, and you can't tell me, the committee chairman, 
under 
oath, that there's no causal link, because you just don't know, do 
you?" 
Burton asked Marie McCormick, MD, ScD, of the Harvard School of 
Public 
Health and IOM panel chairwoman. "I don't know," responded Dr. 
McCormick