Sir, - What must lend credibility and verisimilitude to the data of Denis Gill's letter of August 29th, repudiating the link between the MMR three-in-one vaccine and autism, is that for every autistic girl there are four, or more, autistic boys.
Would it not be the strangest of vaccines that could achieve such a gender selectivity ratio? Experts believe that this very perplexing ailment is genetic and there from birth. It is not very often diagnosed before the age of two years, which is within months of vaccination, when the condition has become more apparent. Hence the latching on to the vaccine as a cause.
But, until such time as these experts succeed in pin-pointing the unknown X-factors involved, surely the Department of Health could allow parents to opt for single-dose vaccines. It would be the lesser of two evils, since not to vaccinate at all out of fear for children could cause disastrous epidemics, particularly with such a serious contagious childhood ailment as measles, which can be fatal. - Yours, etc.,
Mrs Eilis Brennan, St Mary's Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.