mmr jab and austim

I wish I knew - maybe it's one of those areas that science just can't reliably prove one way or another.  For what it's worth, I ummed and ahhhed about it forever with my son and ended up giving him just the first MMR jab when he was about 7 on the basis he was older and more resilient by then.  For my daughter, I blythely took her along for both shots when they came due because autism is a boys disease (or so I thought) and she's now being referred for an ASD assessment.  There's no history of autism in the family and, even before I entered the 'world' of autism, I seemed to have a number of friends with children on the spectrum, some of whom, like me, have no history of autism in the family.  I'd be interested to know if anyone has looked into the prevalence of autism in recent years and whether or not there's any compelling evidence to suggest only better diagnostics accounts for the apparent increase in prevalance.  Whatever the causes, I can't help thinking I know far more people with ASD in the family than I'd expect from random chance...

I wish I knew - maybe it's one of those areas that science just can't reliably prove one way or another.  For what it's worth, I ummed and ahhhed about it forever with my son and ended up giving him just the first MMR jab when he was about 7 on the basis he was older and more resilient by then.  For my daughter, I blythely took her along for both shots when they came due because autism is a boys disease (or so I thought) and she's now being referred for an ASD assessment.  There's no history of autism in the family and, even before I entered the 'world' of autism, I seemed to have a number of friends with children on the spectrum, some of whom, like me, have no history of autism in the family.  I'd be interested to know if anyone has looked into the prevalence of autism in recent years and whether or not there's any compelling evidence to suggest only better diagnostics accounts for the apparent increase in prevalance.  Whatever the causes, I can't help thinking I know far more people with ASD in the family than I'd expect from random chance...