MMR on trial

Oh MMR. Your friend and mine. The triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella that has received so very very very much media and scientific attention since British doctor Andrew Wakefield first linked the baby shot to baby autism back in 1998. Never mind that he was paid by some angry parents with autistic kids. Never mind that pretty much every single study that’s come out since has cleared the vaccine of causing autism. Never mind that vaccination rates have dropped and kids might die from these preventable diseases.

Because we’re done with battling it out in the courts of journal articles, newspaper pages and doctors’ offices. Now it’s the courts’ turn.

Little Michelle Cedillo from Arizona is to have her day in front of a judge as her parents and their lawyers try to prove “that a link between autism and the shots is more likely than not, based on a preponderance of evidence.” Sounds a bit waffly? Well the evidence is not.

Just last year, a study from McGill University in Montreal (where I happen to be at the moment) found that autism rates continued to rise after vaccination rates dropped among 28,000 children monitored from 1987 to 1995. Importantly, the rates continued to rise once thimerosal - the mercury based preservative generally fingered by US parents as the autism culprit - was removed from vaccines.

Of course this isn’t the first time that parents of autistic children have turned to the legal system. Parents in the UK have been trying it for 15 years now. But their action was, just days ago, disbanded by a high court judge.

We can only hope that such sense prevails as the 4,800 US cases take their turn at trial.