There is now more data to confirm that there is no link between children’s immunizations and autism.

The most recent research by Dr. Anjali Jain of the Lewin Group, a health care consulting organization, was published in the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’. In the study, outcomes revealed that siblings to children with autism that were vaccinated did not have any higher of a chance of acquiring the disorder than siblings of children without autism, according to Time.

Studies show that in families where an older sibling has autism and the younger siblings have an increased risk of developing the disorder as well, holds parents back from vaccinating their younger children. Numerous parents believe that the vaccinations, specifically the MMR vaccine, is directly related to the disorder.

During the study, Dr. Jain found that the vaccination rates among siblings of autistic children were much lower than those in families where there were no autistic children.

The research also discovered that children who received the MMR vaccine and had autistic older siblings were no more likely to develop autism than the children who were also vaccinated and did not have any older siblings with autism.

In contrast to what some believe, the findings show that the comparative risk of autism among those with older autistic sisters or brothers was actually lower if they were vaccinated compared to those that were not.

“Our study confirmed that in kids with older siblings who we know are at increased risk of developing autism themselves, those kids are being vaccinated less,” says Jain. “But in the kids who did develop autism who were vaccinated, there was no increased risk from the vaccine compared to kids who did not get the vaccine.”

Dr. Jain is hoping that the results of the study would clam the concerns that parents of autistic children may have about vaccinating their younger children to prevent a higher risk of developing autism.

Due to the large scale of the study and the driving force of it being conducted as part of a larger health insurance database, not for purposes of a vaccines-and-autism study, she hopes it will reinforce the validity and strength of the results.

“We may not understand what is causing autism in these kids or families,” says Jain. “There could be a host of both genetic and environmental factors. But we are able to look at the vaccines themselves and show there is no association with autism.”