My 8 year-old didn’t receive her MMR until she was 3. I intend to do the same with my 2 y.o., just because. My pediatrician supports this decision, I haven’t received any resistance at all in making that choice. At 26 months, really, if she had any autistic markers, they’d show up by now, and she doesn’t. If at 3, she does suddenly begin to exhibit behaviors related to the condition after receiving the vaccination, then that would be very suspicious. Doctors ought to be documenting kids’ development in detail during this critical time and the vaccination should be delayed to eliminate ANY correlation between the two. I realize that the common argument for not doing this is that it puts children at risk for getting the measles during that delay, but it seems there should be a risk/benefit analysis happening here, where the bigger good would be to eliminate the correlation so that more kids would get the vaccine on the whole.

I’ve been on the vaccine merry-go-round for too long to put complete trust in the recommendations. They’ve changed too many times. Vaccines that were once considered totally ineffective (the killed polio) are now the standard recommendation. A vaccine that was considered totally safe (the Hep B in 1999) was pulled ONE WEEK after my daughter received it per her pediatrician’s assurance that it was perfectly safe for infants. The composition was altered and it was again put out as safe for infants in a different form. I understand the AMA’s responsibility on a global scale, but for me, my responsibility is to ensure the safety of my individual kids.