According to the CDC, all vaccines recommended for children are available in thimerosal-free versions. But some parents say millions of previous exposures helped caused a spike in autism cases since the 1980s. The CDC contracted with the IOM in 2001 to generate a series of reports on possible links between vaccines and a variety of health problems. An IOM committee of outside experts, chaired by Harvard researcher Marie McCormick, MD, found no evidence of a link and concluded that proposed biological explanations for a mercury-autism relationship were "theoretical."

The various autism groups are full of parents acting just like star-struck groupies even as they describe their efforts to help their children 'recover' from autism. One such parent, and his fansite, hosts videos of all of the big autism-biomed celebrities along with pictures of the directors posing with 'legendary' autism rockstars. You can see the excitement by the look in their eyes and why shouldn't they be excited? How often do you have the opportunity to meet big mercury stars like David Kirby and the legendary Sallie Bernard?

The use of the term ‘epidemic’ to describe autism is an insulting and derogatory term to apply to a whole subsection of people. It has connotations way beyond its literal meaning and can only add to the misinformation and hysteria which already surrounds autism.

What I fear is two-fold. By pandering to this continuing association with vaccines, autism research risks getting sucked into a biomedical dead end. Its tempting to follow that path (and as Dad to an autistic child I did indeed follow that path for awhile) but it offers no answers and as evidenced above, that path can lead to some very nasty places. People lie in wait like predators, ready to take advantage of your ignorance and charge you to the hilt for the pleasure. I urge all parents to question the motives of anyone linked to the non-scientific treatment of autism. There is often a heavy financial price to pay and sometimes a heart breaking non-financial one. My other fear is that by allowing people like this to discard our autistic children as the results of an ‘epidemic’ or a ‘living hell’ or to describe our kids as ‘lost’ (my daughter is right where I left her!) we create even more negativity about a condition that already carries a heavy load of stigmatising misinformation. What I would hope for my daughter is that she remains free from people attempting to ‘cure’ her and that we as a society can progress to a point where people like my daughter can be free to be who they are, receive treatment for the debilitating accompanying conditions that sometimes come with autism and that autism can be seen as a difference more than a disability.

Indeed, during its 16 days of existence, Huffington's group blog appears to have already become a repository for anti-vaccination propaganda based on the usual pseudoscientific and fallacious arguments that most antivaccination zealots use. (Tip o' the hat to "chaperonin60," who pointed this out to me.) I've already counted at least five posts "questioning" the efficacy of vaccination or postulating a (probably nonexistent) link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism.

The connection between mercury and elevated testosterone - which seems so solid to the Geiers - is not clear at all, even at overtly toxic levels. Nor does the idea that testosterone impairs mercury excretion or increases mercury toxicity seem to be holding water... we have no data to support the idea that testosterone binds preferentially to mercury, that mercury bound to testosterone (if it were possible) would be bioavailable (capable of doing harm). We also have no data that mercury causes an increase in DHEA (as proposed by Geier and Geier) or that testosterone impairs excretion of mercury. What's left?

So, is there an autism epidemic? No. No Gvmt has declared epidemic status for autism at all. The phrase is simply part of an increasingly shrill demonisation of autism in increasingly disrespectful and shameful terms. Other phrases coined include 'autism tsunami' (distastefully coined after the events of last Boxing Day), the 'hell' of autism ‘autism is our enemy’ and many, many more.

Once more, blogging the history of Rick Rollens' quarterly press releases on the California DDS numbers. Warning, it's best not to believe any of his interpretations of the numbers, unless you check them yourself and find that he happens to be right. There's some serious spinning going on here. Please read the whole thing and take note of the dramatic and hyperbolic speech.

If you are keeping track of the trends here in the numbers, you can see that what Rick Rollens is calling a slow-down in the rate of intakes is statistically neglible. After the previoius "tsunami quarter" and after getting some criticism for the inappropriate usage of "tsunami" in letters to the Schafer Autism Report, he still makes reference to a "tidal wave of young children". Autism Diva has a hard time picturing this, it's easier to picture the "hordes of autistic children" from his earlier press release, though the reference is just as weird and demeaning.

More blogging the history of Rick Rollens' quarter press releases on the California DDS numbers. Beware - his press releases tend to contain highly spun descriptions of the data he finds. Don't believe any of it until you check it out yourself. You can see a change of policy from described here, restricting the services to people who would basically be the ones obviously needing services. This enacting of a stricter policy might be the reason that the rate of increase was slightly lower in the second quarter of this year, the most recent one, which he interprets as a sign that thimerosal use caused an autism epidemic.

More blogging the history of Rick Rollens' quarterly press releases on the California DDS numbers. This was the tsunami quarter. Never to be forgotten.

While it is commendable that Kirby takes the experience of parents so much into account, Evidence of Harm displays a limited understanding of what autism is... According to Kirby, autism is a "hellish, lost world" (page xii) and a "befuddling life" (page xiii) for a "damaged" child (page 180) and for her or his family (e.g., page 76). ... While Kirby's opening "Author's Note" states that he does not "endorse the biomedical treatments described in this book" (due to not "enough evidence"), the crucial role of education in treating autism is not sufficiently addressed

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conspired to cover up information linking vaccines to developmental disorders in children, organizations representing parents of autistic children allege. The advocacy groups have long contended that mercury and a mercury-based substance called thimerosal, which were commonly used as preservatives in vaccines, cause some children to develop autism or similar disorders.

It’s pretty clear that Dr. Deth acknowledged only 3 months ago, that available scientific evidence did not make the Thimerosal-autism link a “near certainty” at all, since he speculated that this would happen within 18-24 months into the future. His speculating that it would happen, clearly implies that this had not happened yet, in his opinion. So the question is, what groundbreaking, peer-reviewed, published research has become available in just 3 short months that now makes him confident in stating that there is strong evidence linking Thimerosal to autism to the Governor of Hawaii?

Does the Standards Editor review health-related claims made by nonprofit organizations in the same way that he reviews health-related claims made by pharmaceutical companies or health-care professionals? Are disclaimers required for health-related claims made in nonprofit organizations’ advertisements? Do the editors of the Times perceive any obligation to offer corrections or clarifications of potentially misleading medically-related information offered in advertisements, especially advertisements intended to persuade parents to subject their children to controversial and potentially dangerous medical treatments?

To cure what? Good question. Some believe that autism and its attendant comorbidities are interchangeable. That constipation and a different way of looking at things are the same thing. That dyspraxia and a lack of imaginative ability are the same thing. Others believe that the two things are quite separate. That the comorbidities that are attendant with autism in some people cannot be used to define autism. That the condition of being autistic bequeaths gifts as well as troubles (and it does bequeath troubles, lets not pretend it doesn’t) and that keeping the troubles is a small price to pay for keeping the gifts.

Is there an "epidemic" of autism? Are vaccinations or dental fillings to blame? Lately the media has loudly featured, with more noise than facts, the increase in reported cases of autism and the unproved allegation that the mercury derivatives in some vaccines and dental fillings have caused this increase. We seek ways to improve the condition of those with autism, but enthusiasm mustn't imperil sound science. Wrong answers can make things worse, wasting time and squandering resources.

(this is unprintable)

Many researchers argue that the ethyl mercury in thimerosal is much less toxic than the methyl variety that is known to cause brain damage. They also contend that the apparent explosion of autism cases is largely an illusion, brought about by greater awareness of the disease and more aggressive diagnosis of it. In California, for example, autism levels shot up only after the psychiatric definition of autism was broadened in 1980. In 1990, Congress made autism one of a number of disabilities that qualified for federal funding, and states were obliged to report all cases. Thus alerted, doctors and school counselors suddenly began seeing more childhood autism than ever before.

Since about 1 million little Americans are born every quarter, and since an estimated 1 out of 166 people are thought to be on the autistic spectrum, something on the order of 6000 autistic Americans are coming into the world every quarter. Therefore, VAERS is finding about 2/3 of a percent of autistics. Can you, dear reader, see it might not be a good idea to try to track trends in autism incidence through a system that can't account for even one percent of autistic children? Trends in autism reported to VAERS clearly have far more to do with changes in the fraction of autistic children who are reported to VAERS than with actual changes in the number of autistic children.

The recent spate of media attention to the autism/vaccine controversy has been breathtaking, to put it diplomatically. Autism=poisoning campaigners’ vehemence and tendency to dismiss any scientific evidence that contradicts their pre-existing conclusions are discussed in Gardiner Harris’ and Anahad O’Connor’s recent article in the New York Times, On Autism’s Cause, It’s Parents vs. Research.

I’ve been very critical on this blog of a book called Evidence of Harm and its author David Kirby. The book claims to offer ‘evidence of harm’ in that American children have been systematically poisoned over the last few decades and ‘made’ autistic. Aside from the many factual errors in the book and aside from the poor science used to underpin it there are larger issues to do with making assumptions about autism and autistic people that this book doesn’t just use but actually swallows wholesale.

The lunacy over autism and the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine probably wouldn't exist but for a tiny yet massively-publicized British study that turned out to have been paid for by trial lawyers who -- you got it -- were suing vaccine makers. In fact, some of the children in the study were their clients! When the news got out, the chief author was fired (he now works for the vaccine conspiracy nuts), the medical journal disavowed the study, and the co-authors also disavowed their participation. None of which mattered a bit to the conspiracy-theorists, who prize "real life" X-Files episodes over children's health and blasted me with more hate mail than I'd received on any other subject to date.

Aitken has taken research that contradicts his previous position on the connection between MMR, bowel problems and regressive autism and selectively quoted from it to support his view that there is a connection between bowel problems and regressive autism, while ignoring the authors’ qualifying remarks about the reliability of parental memories concerning regression. There’s more. Aitken misrepresents a pilot study for a screening checklist as if it were an authoritative measure of autism incidence among 18 month old children.

When one is utterly certain that one has The Answer, it then starts to make a sort of sense to conclude that parents who do not subscribe to that "answer" and therefore do not treat their children accordingly are either deluded, careless, or even bad parents doing harm to their children and that they therefore deserve contempt. Parents with autistic children have enough problems; they don't need this one added on top of the difficulties they have to deal with every day raising their children.

Stark described the child’s death: “The Pennsylvania boy was receiving the intravenous form of chelation when he went into cardiac arrest. C.P.R. was administered but the boy died at a local hospital. An autopsy was inconclusive. More tests are planned. This story was only the latest round behind radical environmentalist claims linking autism to a preservative once used in children’s vaccines. The preservative, called thimerosal, contains mercury and is subject of an international campaign aiming to ban the substance. But the issue isn’t about autism. The larger goal is to shut down coal-fired power plants which environmental groups blame for mercury in the environment and which they consider a major cause for global warming.

I wrote "Evidence of Harm" in order to spark national debate over this very serious question. But I cannot debate myself. Critics of the thimerosal theory (and my book) have issued disapproving statements, posted blistering blogs, and even dropped off anonymous, vitriolic flyers at my public appearances. But no one will debate me face to face, at least not so far. (Editor's note: Sure, Mr. Kirby. When are you going to respond to Evidence of Venom?)

It has been dismaying to witness the extent to which uncritical reporters have been willing to spotlight Mr. Kennedy’s bombastic assertions, and the assertions of those who have enlisted him in their cause, with little apparent concurrent attempt made to consider the outlook of those whose lives are also touched by autism, but who have no reason to believe that they or their family members have been "mercury poisoned."

Kennedy is harming efforts to get parents to immunize their children for a variety of illnesses. Parents breathlessly exchange their worries to others about the soundness of vaccines, providing an excuse to avoid the trouble and expense of vaccinating children. A herd mentality can develop, as it seems no big deal to skip vaccinations, because lots of other people are doing it. Thus increases the risk that illnesses will spread through the population. A public health problem that should never happen.

How many times must it be said? Repeated studies have established no causal link between autism and thimerosal exposure from routine pediatric vaccines. The Institute of Medicine issued a report last month stating exactly that, as have several other health organizations including the National Immunization Program of the CDC. These reports are based on many peer-reviewed studies. Therefore, to continue to blame vaccines for autism simply because the onset of autistic symptoms coincides temporally with the pediatric vaccination schedule buys into a dangerous causal fallacy and may lead parents to opt out of having their children immunized. This will put them -- and their school and family contacts -- at increased risk for contracting a number of vaccine-preventable diseases.

After spirited dialogue between the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) and CBS, including CBS's threat to take unspecified legal action against ACSH for our criticism, CBS failed to correct the erroneous and dangerous message they sent to parents, even when vaccine experts associated with ACSH called upon them to do so. We can only conclude, therefore, that CBS News stands by its allegation that parents are putting their children at risk for developing autism if they have them properly immunized.

In a press release from rally sponsors characterized the press conference as “a secret press conference” and “an invitation-only meeting” It criticized the CDC for not notifying anyone from 13 organizations involved in the rally of the press conference and not inviting any of the national autism groups to speak, nor share any copies of what will be presented with these groups.” Well, to set the record straight, I was sent an announcement this morning from the Department of Health and Human Services with a call in number. Dan Olmstead, a UPI reporter who has written in support of the position that there is a connection between thimerosal and autism was in attendance -- so the characterization of secret is a little unfair.

The whole thimerosal-autism hypothesis is nothing more than a pile of cherry picked citations which have been cobbled together by people with little or no scientific background and a few scientists working outside of their fields of expertise. The pieces may seem to fit but anyone with a little experience reading scientific publications can quickly spot the seams in the fabric.

Such viciousness is not only a problem with a few "loose cannons" peripheral to the anti-thimerosal campaign, but also with individuals who are right at the heart of it. I would like to encourage anyone associated with this crusade to raise these issues with their comrades in a meaningful way, for no good can come of a supposedly "humanitarian" effort that is fueled by so much emotional toxicity, and which casts as "enemies" so many people of good will.

Several years ago it was the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine that caused autism. Before that, secretin, a small protein secreted by the intestine, was proposed as a cure; many parents traveled hundreds of miles and spent thousands of dollars for secretin injections. Today, it's the mercury in vaccines. Doctors who play to such fears are not uncommon. The phenomenon of Dr. Kerry isn't new.

In his June 22 column, Craig Westover writes, "The thimerosal connection to autism is first about science." Actually, it's about hysteria and money. Hysteria distilled in the groupthink of autism advocacy groups that insist thimerosal causes autism -- contrary to all reputable science -- and cast anyone who says otherwise as a member of a global conspiracy to poison children.

More and more often, on various unrelated forums I read, it seems that anti-vaccination activism is becoming the trendy topic du jour. Decrying vaccinations as "dangerous" and "unproven" is hot these days; and worse yet, people are now advocating not immunizing children. I keep seeing the same claims posted again and again on all these different forums...sometimes, word-for-word the same, which suggests that people are copying the information from one place and pasting it into another, without actually doing any research to verify the authenticity of this information. This points, I think, to the same kind of credulity that lets people believe in the Loch Ness monster and the notion that human beings were created by space aliens from the tenth planet who used us as slaves to mine gold, but at the same time not believe that the world is round. Credulity pisses me off, as long-term readers of this journal will no doubt have noticed. So I did some legwork. I visited a bunch of anti-vaccination Web sites, and made a list of the claims I've seen posted on many of these sites, and then tracked down the truth. I've invested, at this point, about seven or eight hours into looking up each of these claims, reading very dry articles, doing Google searches, looking at links, and compiling an assessment of whether the claims are true or false. As it turns out, not all the claims are false. Some of them are true, though often not true in the way the activists campaigning against vaccination might think. And I found some surprises, too.

"If this is snake oil and what they're doing is medicine, then I choose to practice snake oil. And I have no embarrassment with it," said Buttar. "If this was a sham then I'll tell you what. This is the best sham that has ever been put on. I think you'd have to agree with that... Why would I waste my time proving something that I already know is working innately?"

What is it you think you are curing? If your child doesn’t smear, or headbutt or have constipation – does that mean they are not autistic? No. It means they’re not constipated or headbutting or smearing anymore. If thats your child then I offer you my sincere congratulations. I don’t want your child to be in pain any more than I want my child in pain. But I would urge you to be very careful – your child almost certainly still thinks and interacts in ways that are very different than you do. Would that be enough justification for you to carry on ‘curing’? If so, why?

Perhaps more than any other historical nostrum -- from the shark-cartilage cure for cancer to magnetic therapy for pain -- the theories about mercury poisoning and autism convince more parents each day, despite a lack of clear scientific evidence.

All industries are subject to being sued, and sometimes those suits turn out to be factually unwarranted. The medical field, including pharmaceutical companies, are no exception. Even when defendants prevail, just being sued can be an expensive proposition. Unfortunately, that is part of the cost of doing business in this day and age. By and large, however, the courts and legislative bodies do a pretty good job of providing a favored status for medical providers and pharmaceutical companies. For example, claims cannot be brought directly against a vaccine manufacturer unless they first go through what has become known as the "vaccine court."

Cyanide is deadly poison Who are these horrid people who knowingly inject compounds containing cyanide into helpless handicapped children? What is their motive? Only the most hard-hearted hater of humanity would ever say that cyanide was safe enough to be injecting into babies! And what about Cobalt? Its very name comes from the German kobold, which means evil spirit! That must tell you something about how toxic cobalt is!

The Daily Mail is not an anti-vaccine paper, but it does ask for the opinions of anti-vaccinators. The reason for this is, as many other have previously noted, that it believes the sky is continually falling in. So, if they think babies are dying from a disease that is preventable by a vaccine, they will welcome the vaccine and revel in the thought of a “killer disease”. Mere days later though, the same paper can then run a scare story entitled Babies to be given 25 vaccinations in a year, apparently without any awareness of their previous headlines: Babies are to be given 25 vaccinations in a year in a move which sparked fears of ‘immunisation overload’.

Any cases more than ten years old would make neither the state nor Statens Serums Institut liable according to Danish law, and, since Statens Serums Institut stopped using preservatives in their vaccinations in 1992, there would be no liability even if a definite link between autism and vaccinations were to be found now. I repeat, there would, under Danish law, be no liability for childhood vaccinations containing thimerosal causing autism.

So, David Kirby’s (who offers an ‘even handed account’ that ‘doesn’t offer his own verdict’ and which ‘walks the middle line’ and thus explores ‘both sides’ of the controversy remember) website is designed and built by someone who blames mercury for autism. How very impartial your propaganda is turning out to be Mr Kirby.

Citizen Cain gets results! David Kirby has quickly responded via e-mail to my recent needling about his previous lack of response to my refutation (in my opinion) of his Huffington Post article. This article argued that autism among young children in California has decreased recently, possibly in response to reductions in the mercury content of vaccines. I argued that the California data in fact show continued increases in reported autism among young children in California.

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data -- and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic.

The story "Deadly Immunity" has been updated to correct inaccuracies in the original version (three sets of corrections).

A recent Cochrane systematic review concluded that there was 'no credible evidence' of a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) and either inflammatory bowel disease or autism. The virtually unanimous verdict of the media was that this review, following a series of studies coming to the same conclusion, meant that the scare launched by Andrew Wakefield's now notorious Lancet paper in 1998 was finally over. Not quite.

A 5-year-old autistic boy who went into cardiac arrest in his doctor's office died as a result of the controversial chelation therapy he was receiving as a treatment for his autism. The manner of death of Abubakar Tariq Nadama, of Monroeville, has been listed as accidental while the investigation continues. The findings released by the Butler County coroner's office don't say whether the treatment itself is dangerous or the child died from the way the treatment was administered.

A new ruling that a controversial drug therapy for autistic children was responsible for the death of a 5-year-old Monroeville boy is likely to intensify debates about the treatment's safety and effectiveness. The Butler County Coroner's Office ruled that Abubakar Nadama suffered cardiac arrest because of an injection of EDTA, a chelation therapy drug administered to him in October by Dr. Roy E. Kerry at the Advanced Integrative Medicine Center in Portersville.

Debate over a possible tie between mercury-containing vaccines and autism flared up this week as activist groups launched a campaign accusing federal health agencies and prominent researchers of manipulating scientific findings on the link. Some parents of autistic children have long blamed vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal for an alarming rise in the disorder. Thimerosal contains a type of mercury. A series of reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) ending in 2004 concluded no evidence could be found linking the vaccines to neurological diseases, including autism.

Tara Parker-Pope's September 7th Wall Street Journal article regarding the unproven link between the vaccine preservative thimerosal and autism included factual errors and left out important points. The result was a mixed message as to whether or not there is just cause for parental concern.

Meanwhile, critics like Steven Milloy, a FOXNews.com columnist and author of "Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams," says emotions are driving the thimerosal scare. "I’m not aware of any credible, peer-reviewed study that has proved this link," he said, adding that other studies, like the Geiers’, can be "plucked apart for their scientific methodology."

I am concerned that all the attention paid to thimerosal takes the focus away from a much larger issue: We Don't Know why autism is on the rise. Too much thimerosal-mongering distracts us from a true scientific investigation of what is really causing all the autism. Too often, we need to know answers right away and we (the public) use this impulse to latch on to the first explanation we can find. This does science a disservice. You'll see from the letters that follow that I take much heat from consumer advocates on this subject. I don't take it personally, and in fact I welcome these letters. I am concerned, however, that the vehemence is misdirected towards me. We are on the same side, after all.

Regarding specific disorders, good epidemiologic studies indicate that, contrary to previous consensus, no association exists between separation anxiety disorder and later-onset panic disorder. Recent work suggests an association between low birth weight and depression in adolescence and adulthood. Despite persistent public concern, little evidence links autistic disorder with exposure to measles and rubella vaccine or to thimerosal, a decreasingly used, mercury-containing vaccine additive. And finally, the apparent increase in incidence of pervasive developmental disorders is likely a consequence of more sophisticated case findings and changes in diagnostic criteria.

The real story is that the autism epidemic is a myth: a combination of skewed statistics, junk science and incomplete reporting... "The [autism] diagnosis is being used more broadly than it used to be. There are some very non-specific diagnoses that have been used in the past: ‘behavioral disorder,’ for example," says the CDC’s Roebuck. "There are kids who 20 years ago would not have been called autistic who now are being called autistic, but they are the same kids."

Just as the Mayo Clinic study of autism diagnostic trends "will probably not end the debate" over vaccines, neither will other analyses that undermine the argument that autism is iatrogenic and evidence of negligence. Class-action lawsuits demanding jury trials distort public discourse about autism and encourage demonization of medical professionals, conspiracist thinking, and perfunctory dismissal of non-actionable contributions to autism. Plaintiffs, aspiring plaintiffs and their advocates have not persuaded the larger scientific community of the validity of their hypotheses. Failing that, they resort to proselytizing the lay public by promulgating unproven generalizations and speculations as if they were scientific facts.

Following Brian Deer's Channel 4 Dispatches investigative documentary on November 18 2004, visitors to this website had their say.

A year ago in May 2004 David Kirby was writing for the New York Times. He travelled to Puerta Vallarta to check out the gay tourist scene and write about it. The article describes him as someone who writes frequently about travel... In June he wrote about another beach, Bradley Beach in New Jersey, a place to buy a home. In October he wrote a book review about a travelers guide to good manners. Then he became an expert in mercury and autism.

The real conspirators here are the Kennedys of the world, the 150 websites, and all those desperate to kill off childhood vaccinations. Sadly, they’re also killing off kids. As more frightened parents refuse to have their children vaccinated, "‘hot spots’ are cropping up across the U.S.," observed a recent article in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, such that "outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, mumps, rubella and diphtheria are reoccurring, costing hundreds of lives and hospitalizing thousands more."

During the first half of the 20th century, polio struck fear in the American public. It crippled children. It left people breathing with iron lungs. It killed thousands. Mass immunization put an end to the suffering. Small pox killed 300 million people around the globe in the 20th century. It, too, was eradicated through the use of vaccines, as were many other diseases. Vaccines save lives. They save the populace of entire communities, of entire countries. In an age where any country is a short airplane ride away, vaccines are more necessary than ever.

What in the world? How is it that these hair samples from presumably randomly selected neurologically NORMAL babies could have rates of mercury up past 100 times the statistically normed level for children age 1-5? Talk about mercury moms! Who are the parents of these kids with 30 to 100 times the normal amount of mercury in their baby hair? Why in the world did this paper call these comparably very high levels "normal" and call the autistic babies' hair levels "reduced"?

Notable for the comments thread.

Fombonne debunked the autism epidemic myth, and MMR and thimerosal autism causation myths at the UCD MIND institute this evening... Thanks, Dr. Fombonne. Thanks MIND institute for hosting him (even though you are part of the problem).

The September 2004 issue of Molecular Psychiatry (may not have been available at your local news-stand) contained an article by Dr. M. Hornig et al titled, "Neurotoxic effects of postnatal thimerosal are mouse strain dependent". Athough the title doesn't give any hints (other than the mention of thimerosal), the article is all about autism. This struck me as strange, since I had a hard time imagining how you would tell if a mouse was autistic. But, I digress.

In 2003, a special master who presided over a case of alleged vaccine injury issued a report that severely criticized Dr. Geier's analysis of a case. The ruling is espcially noteworthy because the special master referred to him as "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience" and listed nine other cases in which Geier's expert testimony was given "no weight."

Journalists agree that the thimerosal story is one of the most explosive they’ve ever encountered. In addition to the vitriolic response Anahad O’Connor drew from readers, he also said he received a number of e-mails praising him and Harris from fellow reporters who had been interested in covering the thimerosal controversy, but had "gotten scared away from really tackling the subject . . . they were afraid of getting hate mail."

Perhaps Dateline might serve us better if they took the trouble to inquire into the financial motives of all these bearers of anecdotes. Are any of these activists looking to make money from this issue? Are any of them offering, for money, services, advice, treatments, or literature to the autistic community, vulnerable people desperate for help? Are any of them seeking research grants or expert witness fees? Are any of them involved in or considering litigation against the drug companies, hoping for junk-science verdicts from scientifically naïve judges and juries who have been bombarded with publicity on the issue?

So Mr. Kennedy spent a whole lot of time being told what to write by Lujene Clark, who seems to have a real problem with understanding what autism is and refuses to believe that there isn't a conspiracy here. And Kennedy used his name to promote more fear and panic among parents, though unwittingly, it seems. On the metafilter blog, in a discussion of the Kennedy article, a parent of an 18 month old toddler expressed fear over the fact that his child had just been vaccinated. Great.

Promotional website for the book fueling the 2005 vaccine panic.

No proof that mercury poisoning either is, or causes, autism. There may be a link but what that link is or even if it exists at all is pure conjecture. In the meantime, what isn’t conjecture is the amount of money Kirby, Generation Rescue et al make from manipulating the emotions of parents into buying hysterical books on the subject and purchasing thousands of dollars worth of chelation ‘therapy’.

In his determination to provide an account that is sympathetic to the parents Kirby enters into the grip of the same delusion and ends up in the same angry and paranoid universe into which campaigners have descended, alleging phone taps and other forms of surveillance as they struggle against sinister conspiracies between health authorities and drug companies. Yet, through his laboriously detailed account he inadvertently exposes the combination of junk scientists, opportunist politicians, and ambulance chasing lawyers who have jumped on the antivaccine bandwagon.

The NAA is the not the big autism organization in the US, that would be the ASA (Autism Society of America). The NAA has Boyd Haley and Andrew Wakefield on it's scientific advisory board. (Wakefield has been essentially disgraced in England and has moved to Texas to keep going on his dead end measles-cause-autism theory.) Boyd Haley doesn't know what he's talking about when he says their is certainly an association between the use of mercury in vaccinations given to babies and children and autism. Mercury can only cause autism if the child is exposed to it in his or her mother's womb when he or she was very tiny (3 - 8 weeks into gestation). The NAA is not concerned with that possible cause, they want to prove that vaccines caused and "autism epidemic" that never happened.

For every parent eager to "recover" their child and "lose the diagnosis," there are autistic citizens who will always have the diagnosis and will always wear the label, and who are affected by the manner in which that label is bandied about by those who hate what it represents to them.

I am under no obligation to prove or disprove your suspicion that my family members have been contaminated. I am under no obligation to explain or defend my family's private medical decisions to you, or to provide you with anecdotal information about our personal lives.

Vaccine controversies, real or imagined, can do real harm to the public. There was a time in this country, before we had the vaccines we have now, when people regularly suffered, even died, from influenza, smallpox, measles and polio. Barely more than 50 years ago, going to the beach during a polio epidemic was dangerous and terrifying. Vaccines have changed our lives for the better, profoundly. Vaccines are also one of the great social justice achievements. Poor people suffer much more when they're sick than rich people do; when a population manages to reduce or eliminate the incidence of a disease, it's poor and oppressed people whose lives change most for the better. So while it's always important to question our medical and scientific establishments, asking the hard questions, it's also important not to throw out the great progress we have made.

Michelle Dawson is an autistic adult who is a member of Dr. Laurent Mottron’s research team at the Autism Clinic of Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies in Montreal. Ms. Dawson is well-known for her trenchant writings on the history of behaviorism, and for her role as an intervener in the Auton case, decided by the Supreme Court of Canada last November. I here reproduce, with permission, Michelle Dawson’s response to Craig Westover’s reply to St. Paul Saga.

When we discuss theoretical factors (call them causes, contributors, collaborators, etc.) and autism, we should always try to remember that we aren't discussing abstract ideas or an hypothesis such as string theory, we are talking about a word that is used to describe the behavior of other human beings. The very use of the word to describe a person can either impart or diminish respect for a person, depending on how it's used. The debate over string theory can get pretty nasty at times, offensive remarks are common to both sides, but the fabric of space and time remains completely indifferent to insults. Not so when we debate autism issues.

A great deal of ongoing research seeks to identify causes of autism, including investigations of genetics, birth trauma, increase in maternal age, metabolic and environmental factors. No research exists that conclusively proves that autism is a consequence of mercury toxicity. However, a 2004 Institute of Medicine review of five large epidemiological studies did conclude that there is no causal association between thimerosal and autism... Environmental protection is a noble goal. Exposure to potentially toxic substances should be minimized, and viable alternatives for mercury-based preservatives in vaccines should be developed. However, in their efforts to draw attention to environmental and public health problems, advocates and journalists should also be careful not to disseminate inaccurate information about autism.

The Geiers’ study was mentioned by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in his extensive essay, Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal (upon which his shorter article, Deadly Immunity was based)... Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal was published on June 22, 2005. Yet, according to the Geiers’ report, "The online public access VAERS database (updated through August 31, 2005) was examined using Microsoft Access" (and) "The online public access CDDS database (updated through October 4, 2005) was examined using Microsoft Access." If Kennedy’s report is accurate, one must conclude that the Geiers determined the results of their study prior to conducting their analysis of data upon which it was based.

In their increasingly forlorn looking attempt to get some kind (any kind!) of connection between thiomersal and autism, the Geiers launched a new paper... These sources are terrible. The VAERS is not intended for this purpose, a fact spelled out in big bold type on its page: ".....Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event."

Even if the data from these databases were more useful for determining the incidence of autism, the way the Geiers did their analysis is utterly laughable. Here's what they did. (Any statisticians, please chime in here.) Basically, they plotted the data as cases against time period by quarter and then used a statistics package to do linear regression of the data from 1994 to the end of 2002 and then to do it again from the beginning of 2002 until October 2005. They then compared the slopes of the two lines derived from linear regression for each graph and concluded that the slope of the line after 2002 had changed from positive (increasing) to negative (decreasing).

"Perhaps more troubling is that the ad implies that those of us whose names and institutions are prominently displayed are convinced that there is a causal connection between mercury exposure and autism risk. However, we do not believe there is a proven connection between mercury and autism... GenerationRescue's advertisement, at first appearance an innocuous gesture of appreciation, may actually mislead the public into thinking that the mercury-autism hypothesis has stronger support in the scientific literature than it actually does."

Promotes the concept that "childhood neurological disorders such as autism, Asperger's, ADHD/ADD, speech delay, sensory integration disorder, and many other developmental delays are all misdiagnoses for mercury poisoning."

The Amish, and their neighbors the Mennonites, have been studied by geneticists for some time because they are a genetically isolated community. Although they accept converts, they don't get very many and so they don't get much "new blood" (genes). In addition, they don't move around much and their members tend to marry within the community - those who don't often leave and join their "English" (as they call people outside their communities, regardless of ethnicity) spouse outside of the community.

Proponents of the myriad autism causation hypotheses - mercury, vaccines, gluten, casein, plasticizers, etc. - all insist that exposure to these substances cause autism in a subset of children. None of them has said (or even implied) that any of these substances causes autism in every child who is exposed to them. The reason they don't (and can't) say that is that it would be painfully easy to refute such a claim. It is obvious that the majority of children exposed to these substances do not develop autism - since even the highest estimates of autism prevalence can only claim that a third of a percent of children are autistic. This leaves 99.7% of children - most of whom have the same exposures as the autistic children - who are not autistic.

Mr. Kennedy may believe that the epidemiological studies which he disparages are inferior to the studies provided by his informants, but he offers no support for his claim that they are "fraudulent" -- a claim that borders on libel against their authors. I am one parent who regards the allegedly "fraudulent" and "flimsy" studies he so roundly rejects as far more credible than the studies produced with funding from SafeMinds, the founders of which have been publicizing their pre-existing conclusions about autism causation and culpability for years.

Andrew Wakefield, the doctor at the centre of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine controversy, was criticised by a high court judge last week for trying to silence critics by warning them that he was suing for libel while at the same time failing to progress the case. Mr Justice Eady said that he was quite satisfied that Dr Wakefield, who now works in Austin, Texas, "wished to extract whatever advantage he could from the existence of the proceedings while not wishing to progress them or to give the defendants an opportunity of meeting the claims."

Kirby is in the habit of not responding to the comments posted to him on the Huffingtonpost blog. Perhaps he doesn't even read them. There have been outright requests from those commenting on his other blog posts for him to answer specific questions. He has never answered those questions on Huffingtonpost or in any other public forum. They are still waiting for him to come back and answer on the British Medical Journal's Rapid Response board where Kirby posted that he would come back and answer questions posed to him there months ago... (such as) "Research? Did you ask about research on children and chelation? But there has been research on children for lead poisoning (what they now claim the child who died during chelation actually had). Did Kirby check on these studies of the chelation on children for lead?"

This study once again hammers home the inherent unreliability of the VAERS database as a tool for longitudinal studies of the rate of vaccine-related complications. Not only can anyone access it and enter reports without verification, but there is no denominator, which means testing for causality is not even possible with VAERS. Worse, as the authors point out, the rate of reporting of autism as a complication of vaccines is easily influenced by numerous external factors. For example, the authors pointed out that 75% of the autism reports in VAERS between 1990 and 2001 were received not long after the the publication of the the now utterly and completely discredited Wakefield study that claimed to find a link between the MMR vaccine and autism and that 2/3 were received after the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that thimerosal be removed from vaccines. And it's not just autism. For example, in 2002, half the reports to the VAERS database about mental retardation were related to litigation.

In Friday's piece, Dr. Gordon in essence impugns the research of all investigators who accept funding from pharmaceutical companies solely on the basis that it may interfere with their objectivity. While conflicts of interest are certainly a legitimate concern when it comes to evaluating the validity of research sponsored by entities that can profit from the results of that research, Dr. Gordon is quite inconsistent in applying his standard.

Some of the comments coming from Generation Rescue’s ‘Rescue Angels’ are getting scarier and scarier... "Anyone who is not chelating to get rid of the mercury is guilty of child abuse. Every doctor who is not telling their patients to chelate is guilty of malpractice." ... Now aside from the factual errors, isn’t that the most frighteningly, almost fascist, shivers-down-your-spine-hair-stand-on-end-uh-oh-here-come-the-fundie-whacko’s genuinely disturbing thing you’ve read in awhile?

It is possible for an unvaccinated child to be autistic and to regress into autism right around the same time they would normally be vaccinated. My child was all of the proof I needed but was I the only one? I don't remember talking to any parents with unvaccinated children with autism let alone second or third siblings. There were a few parents that I'd lost contact with after they went off to have more children. What happened to them? It turns out there are plenty of other unvaccinated children on the spectrum. Many of them siblings of fully vaccinated children with autism. Why hadn't I heard of them before? For the answer to that, all I needed to do was think about the difficulties I faced while coming to terms with my situation and publicly admitting. I WAS WRONG!

The mercury hypothesis has taken on many of the appearances of a false religion or cult and to some degree it serves them well. Take a substance that we all know to be dangerous and it makes it easy to divide the world into two groups, good and evil, pro-mercury or anti-mercury. The anti-mercury underdogs are persecuted by the government and pharmaceutical companies and a few rogue scientists, willing to step up and speak out against the establishment and the evils of mercury, are brought to the pulpit to preach.

One thing the mercury-autism crowd goes out of its way to claim is that it's not "anti-vaccine." However, their rhetoric on the issue of mercury as a suspected cause of autism belies that claim, as does their association with others whose rhetoric is even more heated, calling autism a "silent Holocaust" and those who consider the evidence being touted as "proof" of a link between mercury in vaccines in autism "autism holocaust deniers." Even at best, their overheated hype of very weak to nonexistent evidence for mercury in childhood vaccines as an etiological agent resulting in autism encourages the real anti-vaccination crowd, making the anti-thimerosal activists in some cases "useful idiots" to the true cause of eliminating vaccines. At their worst, they encourage quackery and the peddling of bogus "cures" for autism like chelation therapy to desperate parents.

Other than UFOs, there may be no hotter topic for conspiracy theorists than the claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. There are more than 150 Web sites devoted to fingering various vaccines for the severe neurological disorder. Many blame a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, used in some vaccines, while others blame the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, although it never used thimerosal. The only commonality is that autism appears shortly after the period during which childhood vaccinations are given. The theorists take this "post hoc" fallacy, add suggestive quotations (often taken out of context), toss in a few "experts" and claim cover-up -- so far, unconvincingly.

Imus is publicizing the view that mercury in thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines, is causing the purported autism epidemic. To accept this proposal, one must discount a number of studies that have diligently sought to prove the connection: None has found a theoretical, clinical, or epidemiologic link.

Its no secret that like a few others I was once someone who believed that my daughter had been injured by vaccines and that that injury had resulted in autism. Its also no secret that I no longer believe that to be true. There are many reasons why not. Some are logical reasons, some are medical reasons, some are intuitive. The logical reasons are the overwhelming evidence against a vaccine/autism causative connection and the underwhelming evidence to support that theory. The medical reasons are private and will remain so. Suffice it to say there are better labs than Doctors Data and Great Plains around. What about the intuitive reasons?...

Journalists’ reluctance to critically examine anti-thimerosal campaigners’ claims results in increased willingness by parents to put all children at risk of infectious disease by refusing to vaccinate their own, and increased temptation to subject autistic children to expensive, unproven procedures. Journalists’ failure to seek input from autistic individuals, or from parents who do not attribute their children’s autism to poisoning, puts the majority of autistic citizens and their families at risk of continued marginalization. Many autistic people are offended by stigma-perpetuating assertions that they are “toxic.” Nationwide preoccupation with this campaign diverts attention from the need for educational, housing, employment, and anti-discrimination initiatives, and other issues affecting the quality of life of all autistic citizens and their families.

My post stating that I was thinking of moving to another blogging platform was made on October 28. Then, on November 3, J. B. Handley registered oracknows.com in his name and redirected all traffic to it to his Generation Rescue website. Apparently, J. B. is no longer content just to comment here occasionally when I point out that the evidence does not support his contention that mercury causes autism. Apparently, now he feels the need to trick people looking for my blog.

Thimerosal, the ethylmercury-based preservative found in childhood vaccines, can increase the risk of autism-like damage in mice, according to a report published online June 8 in advance of publication in Molecular Psychiatry. However, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Immunization Safety Review Committee released a statement on May 18 that scientific evidence supports no association with autism for either thimerosal-containing or measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines.

As the mother of two children who received an autism diagnosis at 2, I have seen fads, cures and theories about causation come and go... I urge my fellow parents to seek the science behind any purported treatment for autism and, most important, to educate ourselves on the distinction between science and pseudoscience.

For most in the autism-mercury movement, it is beyond their ability to fully understand or assimilate the scientific data. This does not reflect poorly on them - they simply lack the education and experience to do it, just as I lack the education and experience to repair my car's transmission (or even understand how it works). However, the autism-mercury movement does have people in it who should know what the data mean.

Don't agree that it's over? Show me with your comments but before you do, let me ask a simple question: What has the thimerosal hypothesis done for you lately? Has it brought you happiness or comfort? Helped us to understand true causes? Has it prevented anyone from being autistic? Has it helped you to connect with your child? If so then stick with it. Clearly it works for you and that's what's important. Doesn't make it any more correct but the important thing is that the idea has helped you to deal with a reality you find unpleasant and maybe you've made a few friends along the way. That's what really matters.

The mercury-containing preservative Thimerosal has been removed from all vaccines given to children, except for tiny amounts in a few remaining flu vaccines; in any case, it has not been associated with any neurological disorder in children of any age as a result of vaccinations. Analysis of literally hundreds of thousands of study patients has confirmed the lack of any association between children's vaccines and neurological impairments, including autism-spectrum disorders. The only people still not convinced of the truth of these statements are parents of autistic children, whose judgment is understandably clouded, and plaintiff's attorneys, whose "judgment" is based solely on how much money they can extort from drug companies over unfounded fears.

Last night on Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show", Robert F. Kennedy Junior admitted that he’s not qualified to talk about vaccines or autism: "It’s not really my area," a crestfallen Kennedy admitted to host Jon Stewart. And despite repeated questioning by Stewart, Kennedy would not be drawn on why ABC’s autism special did not support Kennedy’s accusation of a link between autism and mercury in vaccines: "I’ve no idea what happened." … he said defensively, the desperation showing in his voice as he sidestepped why ABC did not buy into the scaremongering tactics of a lawyer, but had instead chosen to listen to the qualified scientists on the issue

Robert Kennedy has been Huffington Posting again, this time suggesting that we study the Amish to see if vaccines are a cause of autism. It was encouraging to note that many people in the comments could immediately see the flaws in Kennedy’s reasoning. I’ll repeat a few of them below.

As you can see, caseload in the 3-5 year old group increased during every quarter, at a fairly constant rate, even as exposure to mercury in vaccines was decreasing. Completely the opposite of the picture portrayed by Kirby! Moreover, caseload over this period increased by 38 percent among 3-5 year olds, but by only 34 percent among 6-9 year olds, although even by mid-2005 nearly all of the children in this category were born prior to 1999. If the thimerosal-autism theory were correct, caseloads should have been increasing faster in the 6-9 year old category, in which there has been essentially no change in thimerosal exposure, than among the 3-5 year old category, in which thimerosal exposure has plummeted.