A new study of 96,000 U.S. children published Tuesday found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study, "Autism Occurrence by MMR Vaccine Status Among US Children With Older Siblings With and Without Autism," examined insurance claims for children born between 2001 and 2007.
"We found that there was no harmful association between the receipt of the MMR vaccine and the development of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)," said Anjali Jain, a pediatrician at the Lewin Group and lead author of the study.
Furthermore, the study found that even those children considered at a higher risk for developing an ASD – those whose older siblings have one – did not develop their own at a higher rate than those who did not receive the vaccine. This applied to children who received either 1 or 2 doses of the MMR vaccine.
The shot protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, and some parents who've refused to give it to their children have aided in a number of measles outbreaks in recent years — many of which were concentrated in California.
"Hopefully this study is reassuring that there isn’t any additional risk from the vaccine," said Jain,
CNN reported.