Bullseye said:
I know Bullseye and I have discussed this before somewhere - as I understand it, based on personal experience and long discussions with an Immunologist, the MMR can act as a catalyst, and exacerbate latent Autistic tendencies - however, those tendencies have to be hard wired in the first place. First hand example - my son had the MMR, autistic tendencies appeared not long afterwards, clinical diagnosis followed of moderate autism. My niece, born 18 months later, didn't have the jab as my sister in law was worried about what had happened to Connor. WIthin three years, her daughter was diagnosed as severely autistic. So, it's reasonable to conclude IMHO that while MMR can "accelerate" autism in some way, it can't
cause it: the genetic pre-disposition has to be there. And the risks of not having the jab are much greater (another niece is now profoundly deaf as a result of not being immunised and contracting measles at the age of 8 ).
Personally, I believe (like others have said on this thread) that pretty much everyone has some autistic traits (collecting things, habitual behaviour, obsessive tidiness etc are all part of the spectrum, and it's a huuge spectrum, at that) - it could well be that autism is just being human. The only people who get labelled with the autism tag are the ones in whom these tendencies are more pronounced.