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Vaccination can protect your kid against mumps, measles and rubella and will not cause autism, doctors say
 Contrary to the findings of a controversial study which has been widely discredited, the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination for young children does not cause autism, most experts say.
Still, some mothers in Singapore who have read the 1998 study are spooked enough to delay the three-in-one jab for their children.
Madam Tan Meng Yin, 44, is one of eight parents in her circle of friends who has chosen to delay her younger child’s MMRvaccination, which is required by law in Singapore.
The part-time teacher is afraid it would make her son, now five, autistic.
More than four years ago, when he was six months old, her paediatrician, on her request, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Health (MOH) explaining the history of autism in her family. Madam Tan’s elder son, now 10, who took the required vaccinations on time, was diagnosed as autistic when he was 3 1/2 years old.
Although her paediatrician declined comment, Madam Tan says MOH did not reply nor pursue the matter.
She says: “I know what my husband and I did is radical. But we’re just erring on the side of caution.” She intends to have her younger son take the MMR jab when he is in his teens. The vaccination is normally administered when a child is between one and two years old.
In 2004, around the time her elder son was diagnosed as autistic, she found out on the Internet about the notorious research that was first published in The Lancet medical journal in 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield. The alarming study suggested a link between the MMR vaccination and autism.
Recently, it was discredited by Britain’s General Medical Council for its unethical research methods that included taking blood samples from children during a birthday party, in exchange for money.
Paediatricians whom LifeStyle spoke to also pooh-poohed the study’s credibility and say there has been no substantiated medical evidence linking the MMR vaccination with autism.
Raffles Hospital paediatrics specialist Dr Wendy Sinnathamby explains that autism, a disorder of development, cannot be diagnosed at birth. Its symptoms usually start to appear between one and two years of age, around the same time children take the MMR jab.
She says parents who notice signs of autism in their children after the vaccination “understandably link the onset of autism with the MMR vaccine”.
A spokesman for the Health Promotion Board (HPB), which oversees the immunisation of children in Singapore, says: “With strong evidence that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, parents should not deny their children of timely MMR vaccinations as it is a safe and effective measure against the diseases.
“The unfounded belief that vaccines can cause autism has caused much harm and led to declines in immunisation coverage in other developed countries in Europe, to the point where measles epidemics occurred in Switzerland, Austria and Italy in 2008, and it is declared endemic in the United Kingdom.”
Measles is normally not a fatal disease. Neither are mumps and rubella.
Singapore’s Autism Resource Centre (ARC) also does not support the 1998 Wakefield study. Its consultants were part of the committee that developed Autism Spectrum Disorders In Pre-School Children. The book was published in March by the Academy of Medicine, Singapore and the Ministry of Health, and confirmed that there was no association between MMR vaccines and the development of autism.
According to HPB, appeals by parents for their children to defer their MMR vaccination are assessed on a case-by-case basis.
The MMR vaccination was introduced in Singapore in 1990. According to the National Immunisation Registry website, parents who fail to vaccinate their child with the MMR jab, can be slapped with a fine not exceeding $10,000, jailed for up to six months, or both.
Parents can opt to delay the MMR shot if their child is unwell at the time of vaccination or have special medical conditions such as a very weak immune system. Although deferment requests are taken into account, both HPB and MOH say they do not support the “biased and invalid” study published in 1998.
According to Ms Denise Phua, ARC’s president, there is no consolidated data by MOH and other agencies on the number of children diagnosed with autism in Singapore in a year.
Worldwide, the incidence of autism is 1 in 167 and males are also 80 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with autism.
Depending on the severity of autism in a child, telling symptoms are the absence of babbling, pointing or other gestures by 12 months, the inability to learn single words by 18 months, no spontaneous two-word phrases by 24 months and having problems with eye contact and responding to his name.
Dr Nancy Tan, a paediatrician at the Singapore Baby and Child Clinic, says the known causes of autism include “strong genetic basis” and it “may be linked to medical conditions such as metabolic, neurologic and genetic disorders and brain abnormalities acquired after birth”.
Despite what doctors say, Madam Tan will stick by her decision to let her younger son take the MMR jab in about eight years’ time.
She says: “I’m not so worried about him getting measles or mumps. I had them as a child and I still survived.”
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