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On 19 October 2005, The Guardian published an article (Study gives MMR vaccine the all-clear) which says that the MMR [mumps, measles and rubella] vaccine has been cleared of causing long-term developmental problems, such as autism and lack of confidence in the vaccine, following controversial suggestions of a link, has damaged public health by undermining campaigns to end the scourge of mumps, measles and rubella.
An international team of researchers reviewed 31 studies, in what is claimed to be the most systematic review of evidence concerning the effectiveness and safety of the jab, for the Cochrane Collaboration, an international charity based in the UK. Due to be published by the Cochrane Library on 19 October 2005, it examined 139 research articles but discarded more than 100 because they had been conducted in a way that could not rule out bias or error. The team concluded that all the major unintended events, such as triggering Crohn's disease or autism, were suspected on the basis of unreliable evidence. If the principle of basing Public health decisions on sound evidence had been applied in the case of the MMR dispute, then all the fuss could have been avoided.
MMR, first introduced in the United States in the 1970s and now in use in more than 90 countries, has been routinely offered for infants in Britain since 1988, but the publicity surrounding a medical research paper published in the Lancet in 1998 prompted a long-running dispute over its safety.
The full article can be viewed on The Guardian website.