Of the children followed, 95 per cent received the first vaccination, which is offered at 15 months, but there was no difference in the number of vaccinated children with the disorder compared to the number of unvaccinated children.
Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism continued to cause concern among the medical community and challenge vaccine uptake.
There has been an increase in measles cases in Europe and the United States and the World Health Organisation has declared vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health.
A 1998 paper in the Lancet which first implied a link between the MMR vaccine and autism was retracted in 2010 but turned thousands of parents around the world against the vaccinations.
The film Vaxxed: From cover-up to catastrophe, which was released in 2016 and also claims there is a link between autism and the MMR vaccine, has also seen a growth in reluctance from many parents to have their children vaccinated against the diseases despite widespread criticism of faulty evidence.
In New Zealand there have been a number of outbreaks in recent years. Yesterday, the Canterbury District Health Board confirmed seven people had contracted the disease in an outbreak which stretched back 11 days.
In January, at least six people in the Waikato contracted the disease.
During a major mumps outbreak in 2017 and early 2018, more than 1000 people, mostly in Auckland, contracted the disease.
University of Auckland senior lecturer in vaccinology Dr Helen Petousis-Harris said the latest study was a "loud and clear" message that MMR could not trigger autism in susceptible children.
"We know through modern technologies such as brain imaging and genomics that autism begins long before birth. It is well established that autism has a complex genetic component with many genes implicated in playing a role," she said.
"The coffin is both nailed and super glued shut then hermetically sealed."
University of Otago Professor Michael Baker, who is based in Wellington, agreed the study was "very reassuring for anyone concerned about the possible link".
"These results should help to reassure parents that MMR vaccine is extremely safe to use. This is yet another piece of evidence to counter the sad legacy of the Wakefield study published more than 20 years ago in 1998," he said.
"New Zealand achieved measles elimination in 2017 meaning that our vaccine coverage was sufficiently high to prevent sustained measles circulation. Although NZ continues to see cases of measles, including an increase in the first two months of this year, these cases are all linked to imported cases in travellers."
But, he said, it was important everyone was vaccinated because it stopped the disease from spreading when brought into the country by travellers.
Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre and Associate Professor in the division of general practice and primary health care at the University of Auckland Nikki Turner said most of the current cases of measles in New Zealand were in young adults who were unaware they were not completely immunised when they were young.
"This is the legacy of a system that historically was not so effective at offering services, changed schedules often and does not have a national register for those who missed out," she said.
"There was some added effect from some vaccine hesitancy in the 1990s arising from the myth that arose from a mistaken belief in association with childhood autism."
