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View Full Version : FYI: latest study on vaccines and autism in New England Journal of Med



sntm
12-18-2002, 04:23 PM
BIG STUDY: no evidence of link. HTH!

Comment in:
N Engl J Med. 2002 Nov 7;347(19):1474-5.

A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism.

Madsen KM, Hviid A, Vestergaard M, Schendel D, Wohlfahrt J, Thorsen P, Olsen J, Melbye M.

Danish Epidemiology Science Center, Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Arhus, Denmark. [email protected]

BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) is a cause of autism. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all children born in Denmark from January 1991 through December 1998. The cohort was selected on the basis of data from the Danish Civil Registration System, which assigns a unique identification number to every live-born infant and new resident in Denmark. MMR-vaccination status was obtained from the Danish National Board of Health. Information on the children's autism status was obtained from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register, which contains information on all diagnoses received by patients in psychiatric hospitals and outpatient clinics in Denmark. We obtained information on potential confounders from the Danish Medical Birth Registry, the National Hospital Registry, and Statistics Denmark. RESULTS: Of the 537,303 children in the cohort (representing 2,129,864 person-years), 440,655 (82.0 percent) had received the MMR vaccine. We identified 316 children with a diagnosis of autistic disorder and 422 with a diagnosis of other autistic-spectrum disorders. After adjustment for potential confounders, the relative risk of autistic disorder in the group of vaccinated children, as compared with the unvaccinated group, was 0.92 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.68 to 1.24), and the relative risk of another autistic-spectrum disorder was 0.83 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.65 to 1.07). There was no association between the age at the time of vaccination, the time since vaccination, or the date of vaccination and the development of autistic disorder. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism. Copyright 2002 Massachusetts Medical Society

PMID: 12421889 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03

p.s. Relative Risk which would indicate link would be greater than 1.0

dd_ani
12-18-2002, 11:27 PM
Thanks for the information, Shannon!

Michelle

Rachels
12-19-2002, 09:12 AM
Thanks for passing this along! I didn't know this study had been done. I will look up the article.

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02