Study of Regression and Vaccinations in Autism

In recent years, many parents have been concerned about the possible effects of various vaccinations, particularly Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccinations, on children's development. These concerns arose as a result of reports of potential links between MMR vaccinations and regressive autism, made by a gastroenterologist in Britain. UMACC's study is a collaboration initiated by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and initially funded through the National Institutes of Health (NICHD). At the present time, the study involves collaborative work of 11 different program projects across the United States. The current goal is to look at the relationship between vaccination status and the onset of autism, particularly for children who had and then lost words in their second year of life. These children are compared to children with autism whose parents did not report any particular pattern of loss in early development, as well as children with other developmental delays and children with typical development. In addition to looking at the relationship in time between vaccinations and onset of symptoms of regression, parental reports of early social development, the possible loss of various social and developmental milestones, as well as associations with family history of different kinds of medical problems will also be studied in detail.

This study is currently underway with an existing sample, so there is not a need to recruit new subjects except for families with typically developing children. Data collection from the parents of children with autism is complete at UMACC and at the other sites. If funding continues, the second phase of the project, an analysis of the typical controls to, will take place in approximately three years. Already, the detailed parental descriptions of their children's early development have been extremely helpful in understanding the nature and prevalence of loss of skills and regression.

Contact Person:
Rhiannon Luyster or Jennifer Richler
um.autism@umich.edu
734.936.8600

This study has approval from the University of Michigan Institutional Review Board (Health Sciences IRB H03 00001143 R1)