Thought Leadership in Action

The vaccine known as “MMR” provides critical protection against measles, mumps and rubella. These diseases can be severe and even cause death.

“The MMR is one of the cornerstones of our fight against significant diseases,” says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a board-certified infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

And yet many parents don’t allow their children to have the MMR vaccine, or they delay the vaccine, demand that it be separated into multiple vaccines or don’t adhere to recommended guidelines.

Such decisions are driven by misguided fears that the MMR vaccine is linked to autism or is harmful. Although this fear stems from one fabricated and retracted study, concerns have lingered leading some parents to withhold a lifesaving vaccine from their children. “Measles is one of the most infectious diseases known to mankind,” Adalja says.

Here’s what you need to know about the MMR vaccine.

Without MMR, Measles Is a Major Threat

When scientists first created vaccines, people marveled at the power of medicine to eradicate disease. They lined up to get these lifesaving compounds and celebrated scientists like Jonas Salk for inventing the polio vaccine.

But in some ways the power of vaccines has been part of the problem. Because they have worked so well to eradicate diseases, we’ve stopped fearing diseases like the measles. Measles, though, is a very serious, potentially fatal disease.

The problem stems from apathy about risk, Adalja says. People today generally do not think of the measles as a significant infectious disease, but that assessment is wildly incorrect. In fact, recent outbreaks have been severe. The 2015 Disneyland measles outbreak was attributed to unvaccinated children and resulted in many children being hospitalized. Worldwide, measles is the cause of an estimated 450 deaths each day.

MMR Protects Against Multiple Dangerous Diseases

The MMR vaccine also protects against mumps and rubella, or German measles. Typically rubella causes a mild illness, but if contracted by a pregnant woman it can cause miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death, and can lead to congenital rubella syndrome, which can cause birth defects or developmental problems.

This syndrome is devastating, Adalja says. “If an outbreak happened today, it would be like the Zika virus on steroids,” he says.

There’s No Link Between the MMR Vaccine and Autism

The misguided notion of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism comes from one case study by Andrew Wakefield that was published in 1998 in The Lancet. This case study was found to have used fraudulent data, and the article was retracted. Wakefield was also accused of multiple ethical violations due to his failure to disclose his financial interests in the study, which was funded by lawyers hired by parents pursuing lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies.

Study after study has since confirmed that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, the World Health Organization says.

However, fears of a connection have lingered, helped along as celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy and Alicia Silverstone have spoken publicly about their misguided belief of a link between the vaccine and autism. Adalja calls the situation a “perfect storm” of 2018 culture where “celebrity culture is coupled with a complete lack of understanding of these diseases.”

The MMR Vaccine Protects Against 3 Different Diseases and Has an Excellent Safety Record

Some choose not to get the MMR vaccine out of misguided concerns about the number of vaccines included in it. But in fact many of the vaccines we get include protection against a number of diseases or strains of a disease.

The MMR vaccine has an excellent safety record, and the grouping and scheduling of vaccines is carefully designed to control the targeted diseases in the best possible way, Adalja says. Spacing vaccine doses or separating them into single-disease vaccinations does not reduce any risk. In fact, “it increases the chances the series won’t be completed and creates more vulnerability for the child,” he says.

“The very, very small risk of an issue with the MMR vaccine is massively outweighed by consequences of a disease like measles,” Adalja says.