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By Merritt McKinney
NEW YORK, Mar 21 (Reuters Health) - A new US study has found no evidence that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and other vaccines containing the measles virus raise the risk of inflammatory bowel disease.
The latest findings may help ease parents concerned by a 1995 UK report that found that children who received vaccines containing the measles virus were up to three times more likely to develop some types of inflammatory bowel disease.
"We haven't found any glimmer of that risk," said Dr. Robert L. Davis, of the University of Washington at Seattle, the lead author of the present study.
In an interview with Reuters Health, he pointed out that a number of independent investigators from around the world have published studies on the safety of MMR and other measles-containing vaccines.
"The studies seem to confirm that the vaccine is safe," Davis said.
Davis' study included people born between 1958 and 1989 who received healthcare through one of four US health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that are involved in the Vaccine Safety Datalink project. This effort is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
The researchers matched each person who developed inflammatory bowel disease to five "controls"--healthy people of the same age and sex who did not have bowel disease and received care in the same HMO.
Based on 142 cases of inflammatory bowel disease and the corresponding controls without the disease, the authors report that being vaccinated with MMR or other measles-containing vaccines did not increase the risk of the inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Both conditions are characterized by diarrhea, cramping, and inflammation and destruction of parts of the intestine.
The findings are published in the March issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Despite concerns that vaccination at an early age might increase the risk of inflammatory bowel disease, Davis and colleagues found that children vaccinated when they were younger than 12 months did not have an increased risk. Being vaccinated between the ages of 12 months and 18 months also did not raise the risk of inflammatory bowel disease.
Children with all types of inflammatory bowel disease were less likely than controls to have been vaccinated after age 18 months, but this difference disappeared when the investigators analyzed the various forms of the disease separately.
The report also indicates that being vaccinated with MMR or other measles-containing vaccines did not trigger symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease within a few months.
"In this population-based study of inflammatory bowel disease at four large HMOs, we found no evidence that vaccination with MMR or other measles-containing vaccines, or that the age of vaccination early in life, was associated with an increased risk for development of inflammatory bowel disease," Davis' team writes.
In the interview, Davis said that the findings should reassure parents worried about harmful effects of vaccines. Although there is no way to guarantee that a vaccine will not lead to illness, the overwhelming evidence suggests that MMR and other measles-containing vaccines are safe.
And even if the vaccine were to carry a small risk of causing inflammatory bowel disease and other illnesses, "one would have to balance that risk with the course of natural disease," according to Davis.
"Measles kills almost a million children around the world each year," he said. While the US and other countries with high vaccination rates have few cases of measles, it was not so long ago that developed countries had epidemics of the deadly disease, Davis noted.
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 2001;155:354-359.
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