Study exonerates childhood vaccine. (Immunology).A nationwide study in Denmark provides strong evidence that a childhood vaccine once blamed for some cases of autism autism (ô`tĭzəm), developmental disability resulting from a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. It is characterized by the abnormal development of communication skills, social skills, and reasoning. plays no role in the development of that neurological disorder. Researchers used data on all children born alive in Denmark between 1991 and 1998 to see whether being vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella rubella or German measles, acute infectious disease of children and young adults. It is caused by a filterable virus that is spread by droplet spray from the respiratory tract of an infected individual. (MMR MMR measles-mumps-rubella (vaccine); see measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine live, under vaccine. MMR abbr. measles, mumps, rubella vaccine ) could be a factor in whether a child subsequently develops autism. Of 537,303 children in the study, 82 percent received the three-in-one MMR vaccine MMR vaccine Live measles-mumps-rubella vaccine A trivalent vaccine containing an aqueous suspension of live attenuated strains of measles, mumps, and rubella viruses grown in chick or duck embryo cells. See Killed vaccine, Live attenuated vaccine. . The rates of autism among vaccinated and unvaccinated children--both less than 0.6 case per 1,000--were statistically equivalent, Kreesten Meldgaard Madsen of the Danish Epidemiology Science Center in Arhus and her colleagues report in the Nov. 7 New England Journal of Medicine The New England Journal of Medicine (New Engl J Med or NEJM) is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is one of the most popular and widely-read peer-reviewed general medical journals in the world. . That finding, which backs up smaller recent studies, may allay lingering concerns about the safety of the MMR vaccine (SN: 8/18/01, p. 110). Measles alone kills nearly 1 million people each year in countries where the MMR vaccine isn't widely used. |
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