ACTING Chief Medical Officer Dr Marion Bullock-DuCasse last week sought to allay concerns that the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine that is administered to children in two doses to prevent measles, is linked to autism – a developmental disorder which affects children’s ability to communicate and to interact and relate to people.

Speaking at the launch of the Measles Prevention Campaign at the Office of the Prime Minister last Monday, Bullock-DuCasse said those concerns are unfounded.

“I have to state categorically that the association is unfounded,” she declared.

The chief medical officer said the association has not been scientifically proven and that the people who had made the association “quite falsely”, really should not have presented information that has far-reaching effects on children or anyone’s health, without having it go through the correct methodology of research.

Bullock-DuCasse said this is one of the areas that will be part of the public education component of the Measles Prevention Campaign which targets 195,000 children from ages one to six for vaccination from February 16 to May 8, 2015.

“So, we are ensuring that we will educate the public, we know parents have the concern, everybody has access to that information, but we continue to urge the entire population to listen to the Ministry of Health as the authority on this,” she insisted.

Paediatrician Dr Michelle Williams told Your Health Your Wealth that she has met a few parents who are concerned about the link between MMR vaccine and autism, but said the approach is to allay their fears.

“Again, we try to talk to them and let them know that that research has been removed from articles and that their findings weren’t significant,” Dr Williams reiterated.

The first dose of the MMR is administered at 12 months while the second dose, originally to have been administered to children between four and six years, is now being administered at 18 months for children born after July 2013.

Minister of Health Dr Ferguson said at the launch that immunisation has led to a substantial reduction of illness and death from vaccine-preventable diseases, and that through the success of immunisation in Jamaica, the country recorded its last case of locally transmitted measles in 1991.

– Anika Richards