MMR jab 'all clear'

A new study of more than 30,000 children gives the controversial MMR jab the all clear.

The report provides the strongest evidence yet that there is no link between the MMR jab and autism rates.

Research found the number of children with autism in Japan continued to rise even after the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was replaced by single jabs.

Dr Hideo Honda, of the Yokohama Rehabilitation Centre, where the research was done, said: "The findings are resoundingly negative."

The study is the first to examine autism rates after withdrawal of the MMR vaccine.

Japan stopped using the jab in April 1993 following reports that the anti-mumps part of the vaccine was causing meningitis.

Fears about the safety of the MMR jab first surfaced in the UK in 1998 after Dr Andrew Wakefield, from the Royal Free Hospital in London, claimed the vaccine might trigger autism.

The findings, published in The Lancet, were based on a study of just 12 children and later retracted by most of Dr Wakefield's co-authors.