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 Dr. Taylor. Hello. I am Brent Taylor. I am the professor of 
community and child health at the Royal Free and University 
College School of Medicine and the head of the Department of 
Pediatrics and Child Health on the Royal Free campus of 
University College London.
    I am honored to have the opportunity to testify today. I am 
here as a clinical scientist, but I am also a practicing 
pediatrician. My clinical work involves children with 
disabilities including autism.
    I know how desperate families can be to understand the 
cause of their child's often devastating condition. I also know 
that if we are to avoid families being led astray by false 
hopes, advances in understanding and treatment must be based on 
high-quality and rigorous science.
    Mr. Wakefield and Professor O'Leary's testimony 
notwithstanding, the belief that MMR is the cause of autism is 
a false hope.
    I have four main points. We do not fully understand the 
reasons why autism has recently increased. We do know that 
there is no evidence that immunizations are involved.
    Second, there is no evidence that MMR vaccine causes 
autism. Third, there is no conspiracy to suppress information 
about the side effects of vaccines--completely the reverse. 
Fourth, because of poor science, uptake of MMR vaccine has 
fallen to dangerously low levels in the United Kingdom, putting 
children's lives at risk from a resurgence of the damaging and 
occasionally killing of preventable diseases, measles, mumps, 
and rubella. The same thing could happen in the United States 
of America.
    If I could have the first overhead, please.
    Here are some figures from the United Kingdom. You can see 
at the top, in the black closed circles, MMR uptake, which has 
fallen from about 90 percent in 1995 to 75 percent in April 
1999. There is almost an exact parallel fall--shown in the open 
circles--in mothers' confidence in the safety of MMR vaccine.
    Could we have the next overhead on top of this one, please?
    The reason for this loss of confidence relates mainly to 
two papers produced by Mr. Wakefield and colleagues. The first, 
which incorrectly related measles vaccine to Crohn's disease, 
one form of inflammatory bowel disease, has subsequently been 
completely undermined. There is no evidence that measles or 
measles vaccine play any part in inflammatory bowel disease.
    The second arrow shows the timing of a paper produced by 
Mr. Wakefield and colleagues describing a small group of 
inadequately described children with a range of autism-related 
disorders.
    Following each of these papers, there was a major effect on 
mothers' confidence and a resultant further decline in MMR 
uptake.
    I will now discuss the results of an epidemiological study 
I led to test Mr. Wakefield's hypothesis that MMR causes 
autism. My two senior colleagues, Dr. Elizabeth Miller and Dr. 
Patty Farrington, have submitted testimony to this committee 
with details of our methods and the background of our study.
    We identified all known cases of autism--498 in total--
living a defined area of North London and compared details of 
the onset and recognition of their condition with independently 
collected data on exactly when they received MMR and other 
measles-containing vaccines. The study involved a large amount 
of work, and we analyzed the data in considerable depth. There 
are lots of results which have been published in the Lancet.
    In summary, all of our analyses were negative. We concluded 
that MMR vaccine is not causally related to autism. In 
particular, we looked at the clustering after MMR of regression 
where it occurred, the timing of parents' concern about the 
child's development, and the age at diagnosis. There were no 
significant relationships.
    Our results are supported by other studies from Sweden, 
from Finland, and from France.
    Our particular interest in this hearing is the rise with 
time we identified from the late 1970's to 1992.
    Could we have the next overhead, please?
    Mr. Wakefield has compared our results with those reported 
in California. This is the overhead. It is important to 
remember that the authors of the California report clearly 
stated that theirs was not incidence data.
    The overhead, which is downloaded from the Lancet Web page, 
is of rather poor quality, and so is Mr. Wakefield's content. 
He has fiddled with the data regarding the dates of the 
introduction of autism, and to demonstrate other problems he 
has with time relationships, it is worthwhile just looking at 
the bottom line, where it goes from 1987 to 1960 to 1990. What 
is actually going on?
    I have included two additional arrows, the red arrows, 
which perhaps more accurately identifies the acceleration in 
cases in the rates at which autism is increasing. These, one 
can see, occurred at least 2 years before autism was introduced 
into the United Kingdom and at least 2 years after in 
California--hardly a convincing causal relationship.
    There is another problem for the MMR theory. Could we have 
the next overhead, please?
    Here is our data from our study up until 1992, which is 
what we published. The rise in autism can be seen there as 
clearly occurring long before MMR was introduced, and I must 
say, contrary to what Mr. Wakefield and some of the groups he 
is associated with say, that we included all cases in our 
analysis, including those involved in the MMR Catch-Up 
Campaign.
    After 1992, the numbers fell. We did not include these data 
in our analysis because we felt that there might be too many 
missing cases not yet diagnosed, and by leaving the left-hand 
side, it really gave the hypothesis that MMR causes autism the 
best chance of being confirmed.
    The parallel line in red is data from two of the larger 
districts, and this is important, because we have preliminary 
data as part of the further study on the same population to see 
what has happened. Is autism still going up, or is it 
flattening out?
    What our early results in these two districts show--if we 
could have the final overhead--is that rates are going down. 
There is an overall increase of numbers, reflecting continuing 
better recognition of autism, and immigration. The fall is seen 
in both studies, suggesting it is a real fall. Cases appear in 
this population to have peaked in about 1992, for reasons which 
are quite unclear.
    This finding alone must exclude MMR as a cause of autism. 
MMR had a rapid uptake in our population from 1988; then, rates 
plateaued, certainly until 1995, while autism rates were rising 
and then falling.
    We need more research on autism and its treatment, but Mr. 
Chairman and members of the committee, present evidence does 
not support a causal relationship between MMR vaccine and 
autism. As a result of adverse publicity on this topic, many 
clients in the UK are now at risk from the dangerous diseases 
of measles, mumps, and rubella. I urge this committee to 
strongly support the continued MMR program to avoid putting 
America children's lives at risk.
    As a result of my work and clear study of the evidence on 
this topic, I believe I can say with confidence that MMR 
vaccine is not a cause of autism.

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Note/Warning:

Autistic people have fought the inclusion of ABA in therapy for us since before Autism Speaks, and other non-Autistic-led autism organizations, started lobbying legislation to get it covered by insurances and Medicaid. 

ABA is a myth originally sold to parents that it would keep their Autistic child out of an institution. Today, parents are told that with early intervention therapy their child will either be less Autistic or no longer Autistic by elementary school, and can be mainstreamed in typical education classes. ABA is very expensive to pay out of pocket. Essentially, Autism Speaks has justified the big price tag up front will offset the overall burden on resources for an Autistic’s lifetime. The recommendation for this therapy is 40 hours a week for children and toddlers.

The original study that showed the success rate of ABA to be at 50% has never been replicated. In fact, the study of ABA by United States Department of Defense was denounced as a failure. Not just once, but multiple times. Simply stated: ABA doesn’t work. In study after repeated study: ABA (conversion therapy) doesn’t work. 

What more recent studies do show: Autistics who experienced ABA therapy are at high risk to develop PTSD and other lifelong trauma-related conditions. Historically, the autism organizations promoting ABA as a cure or solution have silenced Autistic advocates’ opposition. ABA is also known as gay conversion therapy.

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[Note: Autism is NOT a disease, but a neurodevelopmental difference and disability.]

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Fact: Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism.

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