Another phenotypic distinction we are investigating is early-onset versus
regressive autism, as defined by the language and social regression questions on the ADI-R and the CDQ.
A team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina are currently examining 275 children with
regressive autism and bowel disease.
Dr Richard Hyslop, GP at the Old Cole Surgery, in Bedworth, said: "Autism, including
regressive autism, was well-known long before MMR was used in this country.
Traver presented data showing that exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics may be a trigger in the development of autism and findings that the intestinal microbiota of children with
regressive autism is disrupted with an increase in Clostridium and Ruminococcus species.
It provides no evidence to refute the Wakefield hypothesis of an association between MMR vaccine,
regressive autism following previously normal development, and a novel form of inflammatory bowel disease.
Researchers will also investigate possible treatments for autism, including the antibiotic minocycline in
regressive autism and the use of chelation therapy.
In the years since Dr Wakefield's claims not one epidemiological study has revealed a link between the vaccine and autism, even though parents of children with
regressive autism maintain they were damaged by the vaccinations.
"It makes me so angry, " she said: "My son has suffered typically
regressive autism after he had the DPT jabs in Australia, and fell seriously ill with chronic diarrhoea."
She said studies conducted on the issue had been based on large-scale populations and were 'too insensitive to pick up the rarer cases of
regressive autism with bowel disorder which some families are convinced may have been triggered by MMR'.
Tests carried out on children with
regressive autism have shown the presence of measles virus in the bowel, blood and spinal fluid, therefore in the brain.
