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Few young children had mild reactions to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and older children had nearly no vaccine related reactions

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QUESTION: What are the adverse effects of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in children who are twins?

Design

Randomised (unclear allocation concealment), blinded (nurses, investigators, and parents), placebo controlled, crossover trial.

Setting

A child health centre in Finland.

Patients

1162 children who were monozygous or heterozygous twins (581 twin pairs) between 14 months and 6 years of age with or without previous measles vaccination. Follow up was 100%.

Intervention

For each twin pair, 1 child was allocated to receive a dose of vaccine first and then a dose of placebo, and the other child was allocated to receive a dose of placebo first and then a dose of vaccine given 3 weeks apart.

Main outcome measures

For 21 days, parents reported daily signs and symptoms including local reactions (redness …

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Footnotes

  • Source of funding: Merck Research Laboratories.

  • For correspondence: Dr H Peltola, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Hospital for Children and Adolescents, Box 281, 00029 HUS, Helsinki, Finland. Fax +358 9 4717 4708.