Measles and Autism?

This is outside my area of expertise, so I won't comment on this, other
than to say that it pretty much speaks for itself.  The
article is from the journal Pediatrics.

href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/4/1664">No
Evidence of Persisting Measles Virus in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear
Cells From Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder



D'Souza Y, Fombonne E, Ward BJ.

 

Division of Infectious Diseases, McGill University Health Center,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.



OBJECTIVES: Despite epidemiologic evidence to the contrary, claims of
an association between measles-mumps-rubella vaccination and the
development of autism have persisted. Such claims are based primarily
on the identification of measles virus nucleic acids in tissues and
body fluids by polymerase chain reaction. We sought to determine
whether measles virus nucleic acids persist in children with autism
spectrum disorder compared with control children.



 PATIENTS AND METHODS: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were
isolated from 54 children with autism spectrum disorder and 34
developmentally normal children, and up to 4 real-time polymerase chain
reaction assays and 2 nested polymerase chain reaction assays were
performed. These assays targeted the nucleoprotein, fusion, and
hemagglutinin genes of measles virus using previously published primer
pairs with detection by SYBR green I. Our own real-time assay targeted
the fusion gene using novel primers and an internal fluorescent probe.
Positive reactions were evaluated rigorously, and amplicons were
sequenced. Finally, anti-measles antibody titers were measured by
enzyme immunoassay.



RESULTS: The real-time assays based on previously published primers
gave rise to a large number of positive reactions in both autism
spectrum disorder and control samples. Almost all of the positive
reactions in these assays were eliminated by evaluation of melting
curves and amplicon band size. The amplicons for the remaining positive
reactions were cloned and sequenced. No sample from either autism
spectrum disorder or control groups was found to contain nucleic acids
from any measles virus gene. In the nested polymerase chain reaction
and in-house assays, none of the samples yielded positive results.
Furthermore, there was no difference in anti-measles antibody titers
between the autism and control groups.



INTERPRETATION: There is no evidence of measles virus persistence in
the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of children with autism spectrum
disorder.



PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 4 October 2006, pp. 1664-1675
(doi:10.1542/peds.2006-1262)

Will this change anyone's mind on the topic?  Probably not. Why not? Because it is easy
to selectively cite only the evidence that supports your case. Person unfamiiar with searching the
medical literature may not realize that contrary evidence even exists.