Close menu
Science Library Category:

Measles Mumps Rubella Antibody - Measles Mumps Rubella Antibodies

Abnormal measles-mumps-rubella antibodies and CNS autoimmunity in children with autism
Published: 2002
SYNOPSIS

Utah state scientists find autoimmune reaction to MMR in children with autism, including autoimmunity to myelin basic protein, a brain building-block.

CITATION

Singh VK, Lin SX, Newell E, Nelson C. Journal of Biomedical Science. 2002;9:359–364.

SUMMARY

“[A]s described herein, autistic children showed a serological correlation between MMR and brain autoimmunity, i.e., over 90% of MMR antibody-positive autistic sera also had autoantibodies to brain MBP. This is quite an intriguing observation in favor of a connection between atypical measles infection and autism; an atypical infection usually refers to infection that occurs in the absence of a rash. An atypical measles infection in the absence of a rash and unusual neurological symptoms was recently described to suggest the existence of a variant MV in children and adults. In light of these new findings, we suggest that a considerable proportion of autistic cases may result from an atypical measles infection that does not produce a rash but causes neurological symptoms in some children. The source of this virus could be a variant MV or it could be the MMR vaccine.”