1. Summary

This note sets out, in some detail, the concerns of parents whose children have become autistic after MMR or measles-containing vaccines.

• It does not attempt to cover all the available scientific literature, but it reviews a number of recent or frequently-quoted studies.
• It finds that there are studies that clearly point to MMR causing late-onset autism (or "autistic enterocolitis") in significant numbers of children.
• More importantly still, it finds that there are absolutely no other credible explanations for these children’s conditions, and that there has not been a single credible study that can refute the claims of the parents that their children’s autism has been caused by MMR or elated vaccines.
• It also investigates some of the surrounding issues - the numbers of children affected, whether there has been an increase, the flawed regulatory regime governing MMR and the failure to properly monitor adverse reactions.
• It also highlights the lack of independent public scrutiny of much of the UK immunisation programme, and of those who are employed within public bodies to oversee it.

2. What Is Late-Onset Autism/Autistic Enterocolitis?

• Autism is not an illness in itself, so much as a manifestation of a dysfunction in certain parts of the central nervous system, affecting particularly language, cognitive and intellectual development and the ability to relate to others.
• The "classic" form of autism was first described by Dr. Leo Kanner. These children were different from normally-developing children from birth.
• However, a very different form of autism has now emerged, at first in the US in the late 1970s and then in the UK in the late 1980s and onwards. In this new-variant autism, children develop normally, passing all their developmental milestones, and then regress into an autistic-like state. They lose their previously-demonstrated speech, learned behaviour and social skills. In effect, they dissolve into a state of mental impairment, of varying severity.
• This late onset of autism typically occurs at an age of between fifteen months and two years, which is the period following receipt of MMR vaccination.
• This is described by the UK Department of Health as a coincidence of timing. However, very significantly, older children, aged four, five or six, have also degenerated into autism after MMR, implying that the link is not coincidental.
• Also, no cases are known to campaigning parents of any children who have become autistic just before MMR.
• The parents are also not aware of any children who missed MMR out altogether, but still degenerated into autism around age one to two years. This in itself is not scientific proof of a link, but it is very strongly suggestive of a connection.
• No credible alternative explanation for why a previously-healthy child should become severely autistic has been put forward.
• Undoubtedly there are other factors involved, pointing to a predisposition of certain children to be vulnerable to damage, of varying severity. Research is trying to pinpoint those factors.
• Coinciding with the late onset of autism (or other damage - autism is not the only manifestation of there being a problem), has come other symptoms. These include gastrointestinal problems such as alternating bouts of diarrhoea and constipation, chronic abdominal pains and bloating, hyperactivity, extremely poor sleep patterns, and particular intolerances to gluten and casein.
• It is highly likely that these other elements are linked into the biological explanatory sequence of autism, notably through the pathway of gut damage and penetration of the blood-brain barrier.

3. The New Syndrome

This is a summary of the new syndrome of autistic enterocolitis:

• In a cohort of children examined through ileocolonoscopy at the Royal Free Hospital, London, an almost 100% incidence of ileal-lymphoid nodular hyperplasia has been found.
• This condition manifests itself as swollen lumps throughout the intestinal tissue of autistic children. The condition is very rare in non-autistic children.
• The condition is believed to have developed in each case in the period following MMR immunisation
• Because of its swollen and hyperplasic condition, undigested toxins , having not been stopped by either the intestine or the liver (which can also be damaged) are then able to attack the central nervous system