A British researcher on autism has recommended that single vaccines, as well as the three-in-one MMR vaccine, be made available to parents.
Dr Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, said there was a question-mark over the mumps, measles and rubella vaccine, and that while it existed single vaccines should be available.
"Parents, at the very least, deserve a choice," he told the joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children.
Dr Wakefield emphasised that he was not anti-vaccine and was not a "maverick" doctor. He was a conventional physician who had been contacted by a group of parents who told "remarkably consistent stories about their children's decline into autism."
These children were a subset of people with autism, he said. His study of more than 170 children found that they had experienced normal development until after their MMR vaccine.
They then regressed, experiencing difficulty with learning skills and eating, and showing general neurological and gastrointestinal symptoms.
Single vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella are not available in this State.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Health said the MMR vaccine had been demonstrated to be both safe and effective.
"On the basis of currently available information, there is no evidence that giving each of the component vaccines separately has any greater benefit than the combined vaccines," she said.
However, Dr Wakefield said single vaccinations would not pose a health risk to infants, provided the measles vaccine was given at 15 months.
The mumps and rubella vaccines could be delayed for a year or two without risk.
Dr Wakefield pointed to the dramatic increase in autism rates in the US, where one state recorded an autism rate of one in 32 children aged between six and 18 years. "I do not want this to be the future for this country or for the UK."
Previously, autism was so rare that a doctor could practise for a lifetime without encountering a case, he said.
Prof John O'Leary of the Coombe Women's Hospital, who has also found an association between the measles virus and autistic entercolitis, called for greater support for research in this area.
