Measles Presence in Some Patients With IBD, Autistic Enterocolitis
There has been much controversy about whether the MMR vaccine can lead to autism in suseptable persons. This is another study that begins to add weight to this theory.
Dig Dis Sci 2000;45:723-729 Japanese and UK-based scientists have detected measles virus sequences in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and autistic enterocolitis — the recently described syndrome purportedly associated with measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. Dr. Hisashi Kawashima from Tokyo Medical University and colleagues there and in London explain that previous studies have suggested that measles virus may be present in the intestine of Crohn’s disease patients. They also allude to the reported association between measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination and some cases of autistic enterocolitis, a syndrome of gastrointestinal symptoms and developmental regression in children leading to autism (See Reuters Health report, February 27, 1998). Numerous other reports, however, have discounted that association.