Andrew J Wakefield, MB; Carol Stott, BSc Ph.D; Peter Fletcher, MB BS, PhD; Peter Harvey (Consultant Neurologist); Richard Halvorsen GP; F. Edward Yazbak, MD; Jane Maroney El-Dahr, MD

It is perplexing to us why, in the face of replication by US scientists of the earlier detection of measles virus in the diseased intestine of UK children with regressive autism, Elliman and colleagues should want to 'draw a line' under this clearly unresolved issue. This flies directly in the face of scientific logic and professional responsibility.

The vaccine-strain gene sequences obtained from the diseased intestine of some of these US autistic children is deeply worrying and runs counter to the prevailing belief that the vaccine virus should be cleared from the body in a matter of weeks. Further research will determine whether or not this association is causal. In this context, it is relevant that we have recently published the finding that intestinal inflammation is significantly worse in autistic children who received 2 doses of MMR compared with those who received only one, i.e., a possible re-challenge effect.

Joseph Mercola, DO

I will allow one of the country's leading anti-vaccine advocates, and one of my personal heroes, to expand on this amazing story (Medical Quackery on Anti-Vaccine Web Sites indented below).  I have listed the sites that were reviewed after her comment. My site was not included as the research for the article was done two years ago and the search engines they used at the time did not rate my site high enough. Of course that would be far different today as the site is the number one traffic ranked site of all the antivaccine sites.