Recent media reports suggesting that separate doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are safer than the MMR combined vaccine have been rejected by chief medical officer, Sir Kenneth Calman.
Calman was commenting after a paper published in The Lancet, linking the MMR vaccine to autism, had led to much misleading press coverage.
“Despite The Lancet
paper stating categorically `We did not prove a link between MMR vaccine and the syndrome described’, this work has been wrongly reported as demonstrating a real causal association,” Calman said.
Calman said he, along with independent experts, had seen the published work and was not convinced of any link.
He added: “Immunisation policy is built on scientific evidence of benefit and risk. No scientific evidence of the risk of autism from MMR has been published.”
Calman warned: “There is an inevitable increased risk in following the suggestion that children receive three separate vaccines, given that they may then be exposed to serious infection far longer than necessary.
“Therefore, I strongly recommend that parents continue to have their children vaccinated with MMR.”