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Biotech Science

A Link Between Autism and Thimerosal? 153

Posted by timothy from the shots-required dept.
tessellation writes "Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has just published a review of evidence for the link between thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative added to vaccines until 2003) and the autism epidemic. It also details attempts by the FDA and CDC to protect the drug industry from litigation by producing favorable results rather than objective studies: '"Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism and thimerosal," Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director of strategic planning for vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health, assured a Princeton University gathering in May 2001. "In order to undo the harmful effects of research claiming to link the [measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need to conduct and publicize additional studies to assure parents of safety." Douglas formerly served as president of vaccinations for Merck, where he ignored warnings about thimerosal's risks." How often are studies successfully altered by funding agencies to conceal negative results?"
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A Link Between Autism and Thimerosal? More

A Link Between Autism and Thimerosal?

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  • Experimenter Bias (Score:3, Insightful)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @12:20AM (#12869722) Homepage Journal
    Take 100 rats. Give 50 to a random selection of students and give them 5 tests to perform. Give the other 50 to a random selection of students and give them the same 5 tests to perform, but tell the students that these are specially bred laboratory rats which have been genetically tested to ensure they are more accurate when testing for human disease (or whatever fairy tale your students are likely to buy). The results from the second group will not match the first. There will be a statistically significant difference between them.
    • Prove it.

      • Re:Experimenter Bias (Score:4, Informative)

        by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @02:01AM (#12870046) Homepage Journal
        It's called the Expectancy effect and was discovered by Rosenthal and Fode in 1963. Obviously it is not something that can be proven, but it is something that can be observed and has been time and time again since.

    • irrelevant here (Score:3, Informative)

      by cahiha ( 873942 )
      First of all, I should say that I don't believe the hypothesis to be true based on the data presented.

      However, while observer bias is an issue in many studies, it probably wasn't one here: it did not involve an experiment in which experimenters could have shown bias; the hypothesis ("thimerosal causes autism") wasn't even known or stated during data collection.
      • So there is an objective test for autism? Last I checked, the diagnosis was fairly subjective. That leaves a door wide open for experimenter bias.

        "Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism and thimerosal"

        Sounds like the conclusion of the study had already been decided.
        • So there is an objective test for autism? Last I checked, the diagnosis was fairly subjective. That leaves a door wide open for experimenter bias.

          Come on, don't be so naive: such studies don't involve people driving around diagnosing patients. These kinds of epidemiological studies are based on patient records. The diagnoses were made years ago by qualified doctors who knew nothing then about the hypothesis being tested today.

          "Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between
          • No, that's the accepted way of doing statistics in the medical sciences: you formulate a hypothesis and you test it.

            We all (hopefully) agree that that is the Scientific Method, but since statistics can be made to say anything you'd like, I wonder if bias flaws these kinds of studies from the beginning?
          • Have you ever read a patient record? There is no checklist with yes/no boxes for autism. There will be some vague wording like: "mild social interaction disorders and speech problems suggest borderline autism". OK, Mr. Unbiased Researcher, is that a yes or a no?

  • Mr Kennedy's a qualified researcher now? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gusnz ( 455113 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @12:41AM (#12869796) Homepage
    This smells fishy. Especially considering most of the authors of the original 1998 study suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have apologised and had their paper retracted by the Lancet [boston.com] due to a conflict of interest [vaccinationnews.com]. Furthermore, a recent study of Danish children [nih.gov] has shown rates of autism continued to increase even after the removal of thimersol from vaccines (via a MetaFilter discussion [metafilter.com] of this topic).

    Now, don't get me wrong; it may still be the case that thimersol or some other vaccine ingredient contributes to autism. However, the balance of evidence [nih.gov] from qualified medical researchers is against this viewpoint at the moment, and it's unethical of Mr Kennedy to start spreading what is essentially FUD unless he has the epidemiological data to back it up.

    • you're missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @02:29AM (#12870118)
      I agree with you that the data and results are "fishy". But you are asking the wrong question. Kennedy doesn't have to be a "qualified researcher" in order to publish something in Salon.com, even something with scientific content. Salon.com is not a scientific journal, it's an on-line magazine for journals and writers, and Kennedy qualifies as one of those. Furthermore, anybody who has not been living under a rock for the last several decades will know his background and status.

      As a scientists, I hope the day will never come in which only "qualified researchers" can publish on controversial issues. Voting age citizens are supposed to be able to comprehend, judge, and evaluate information for themselves.

      • > Kennedy doesn't have to be a "qualified researcher" in order to publish something in Salon.com, even something with scientific content. Salon.com is not a scientific journal, it's an on-line magazine for journals and writers, and Kennedy qualifies as one of those.

        Strictly speaking he doesn't have to be a "qualified researcher" in order to publish in a scientific journal either, so long as he does his homework, justifies his method of collecting data, and draws his conclusions by applying sound reaso

      • Re:you're missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gusnz ( 455113 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @03:12AM (#12870241) Homepage
        As a scientists, I hope the day will never come in which only "qualified researchers" can publish on controversial issues.
        Relax, I agree he has the right to write articles on the issue regardless of his qualifications; it's a free world. I do, however, think that he should fairly represent the current state of research, or at least acknowledge that the point is undecided, rather than writing as if the evidence is 100% against thimerosal. Quoting Page 2 of his article:

        From the very beginning, the scientific case against the mercury additive has been overwhelming.

        That's not exactly balanced. Furthermore, above that he writes:

        It was only after reading the Simpsonwood transcripts, studying the leading scientific research and talking with many of the nation's preeminent authorities on mercury that I became convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real.

        It's unethical for someone who has studied the "leading scientific research" and talked "nation's preeminent authorities" to so misrepresent the preponderance of evidence and the positions of those who disagree with him; he cites and dismisses "some skeptics" in the paragraph after my quote as believing the increase in autism prevalence is due to better diagnosis, which may be true, but doesn't even mention such "skeptics" may think the cause of the increase remains totally unknown!

        In addition there's a lot that contravenes common sense. For instance:

        In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by administering it to 22 patients with terminal meningitis, all of whom died within weeks of being injected.

        Patients with terminal meningitis died? As in "terminal" meaning "incurably near death"? Who would've thought?

        I could go on and on for a while, but I hope my point has been made. If you're a notable public figure writing on a contentious issue, you have an obligation to present the evidence in a balanced manner, rather than picking and choosing your sources to prop up your own biases and conclusions.
        • I agree he has the right to write articles on the issue regardless of his qualifications

          Well, I'm glad that you do. It's not what the grandparent post said.

          it's a free world. I do, however, think that he should fairly represent the current state of research, or at least acknowledge that the point is undecided,

          Sure, but that's a very different statement from the original one; now you are criticizing the article on content, not authorship.
          • I think you should go back and reread the grandparent. "Furthermore, a recent study" ... "the balance of evidence" ... "epidemiologial data to back it up" -- every part of that post seems to be dealing with the article's content; at one point it mentions the author by name, but at no point makes any statement about the author.
      • However, Salon.com should not be publishing articles which contain untrue information. "From the start, the evidence against it was overwhelming"? Oh yes?

        Scientific journals tend to (or are supposed to) carry out some factual checking on article content before publishing. Salon.com apparently just published without checking. Kennedy is claiming an ability to spot connections which is not backed up by evidence, or by a superior scientific ability.

        If this were an editorial expressing one person's opinio

      • As a scientists, I hope the day will never come in which only "qualified researchers" can publish on controversial issues. Voting age citizens are supposed to be able to comprehend, judge, and evaluate information for themselves.

        Although I agree with this in concept, the problem here is not that people shouldn't be allowed to have their opinions and discuss controversy, but rather that when people read stuff like this, that claims geniune scientific method and discovery without having either, they grow

        • yes any person of age can read the information (if they're literate), but can they really understand it, and do they know which sources are accurate and which are not?

          When these people go to the voting booth and vote on issues like health care, national defense, social security, and the justice system, they need to make the same kinds of evaluations of expert opinions, and they decide over the life and death of hundreds of thousands of other people every year. If we entrust people with that responsibilit
    • I've mentioned this before but i'll harp on it again.

      Regardless of what the truth turns out to be, something desperately needs to be changed. Medicine, for a long time now, has been a fake science. They start with the conclusion they want and work from there. Medicine is full of monopolies, conflicts of interest, and hipocrocy. The prevailing mentality that ethical issues are only important for lesser beings is a great example of the view the medical community has of itself.

      Don't believe me? Well.. t
    • You seem to be just as much a victim of misinformation, relying, for instance, on a completely debunked Danish "study" [generationrescue.org] for your argument. Just like in the case of Vioxx, pharma reports that draw on publicly available study data tend to draw the exact opposite conclusion of what the data itself suggests.

      Just the fact that a single thimerasol-containing vaccine (such as the flu shot) contains 40 times more mercury than the FDA guidelines allows for adults, and that these vaccines are given to infants ought
      • That site should be:
        www.autismanswer.com [autismanswer.com]
      • I'll admit I don't know, but isn't the FDA standard for elemental mercury, while it is part of a chemical compound in themersol? I believe I've heard that distinction made elsewhere, but you don't mention it.
        • This distinction, though maybe worth noting, has no bearing on the levels of mercury absorbed into your blood stream (liver, nervous system, etc). That's because the mercury in thimerasol (methyl mercury) is 90% absorbed by your body, wheras that in, say, fish & seafood (ethyl mercury) is only about 10% absorbed.

      • Your post is misleading. You are lumping in exposure well after Autism starts with exposure prior to birth. Autism is a disorder linked to pervasive developmental problems in the brain that start prior to birth, or _immediately_ after:

        http://www.unc.edu/~cory/autism-info/orgautsa.htm l [unc.edu]

        http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/ awh330v1 [oxfordjournals.org]

        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1593599 3 [nih.gov]

        • What you say is a misinterpretation of the articles you quote. The vast majority of autistic children have no signs of autims until around 18-24 months of age (so-called "late onset autism"). Only a few children are autistic at birth or soon after.

          Only the first of the articles you point to talk about genetics at all - and this article in the context of predisposition. 20 years ago, individuals with the same facial characteristics (e.g. low corners in mouth) did not normally develop autism.

          My son, for
          • I completely disagree. What happened to your family is tragic - but it wasn't infant mercury poisoning. The cause of his condition is not related to the shots, even if that occurred when symptoms first started to appear.

            Even though Autism is usually diagnosed at 1.5 to 2 years of age (or older), the condition itself is known to start at or before birth. It is known to not be caused by damage to the brain - but by developmental problems - studies from the past 5 years have consistently shown there are meas

            • Maybe you can illustrate for me why mercury chelation (via TD-DPMS) does wonders for him, if this has nothing to do with mercury?

              Again, not to get too bogged down in a lengthy discussion (I have better things to do), but you ought to know that Autism is a multifactorial disorder. This means that - yes - genetics, such as large amounts of white matter in the brain - has a role, but that there are other factors as well. One of these is mercury. Another one is the part of the Thimerasol molecule that is le
              • Chelating... great... I have a gluten free diet and a bridge to sell you also.

                I hope you've also enrolled your son in an ABA program while you pursue a "cure".
                • Yes, he has been enrolled in an ABA program, with OT and Speech Therapy as well, ever since he was diagnosed in January. This is helpful, no doubt, but where we really saw a difference was with biomedical treatments (such as carnintine supplements to repair the liver, and specific probiotics to help get rid of yeast in the GI tract), as well as - yes - chelation. Not only did his behaviour and language improve, but he no longer gets sick (he used to have frequent stumach flus etc), his stools are much bet
                  • Stake? I have no *personal* stake, except for a desire to be as informed as possible on a variety of issues. As such, my personal knowledge comes from scientific journals, and reading over my wife's shoulder as she completed her doctorate in Pschology (plus reading the professional journals she brings home).

                    As for being informed... I'll stick with serious journals instead of the delibrate misinformation that is put out there by "informational" websites. Why is it that the sites that mention the "1 in 150"

                    • The fact that you still point to genetics as the only cause of autism means that you did not at all get (or even try to get) what I wrote earlier.

                      One more time: Autism (or more accurately, Autism Spectrum Disorders, ranging from full-blown Autism via Asperger's, to ADHD and ADD) is a multi-factorial disorder, or if you will, disease. One of these factors is genetic predisposition. But if that was the only factor, you could not explain why:
                      • The number of autistic children has grown so epidemically over
                    • I forgot to mention this, based on my personal insight:

                      Both my own son, and one of the other kids in our neighbourhood who is going through DMPS chelation, are now "dumping" large amounts of mercury from their bodies (as seen in urine tests, and more informally via so-called "detox rashes" on their skin). Simultaneously, they are both acquiring language and social skills at a rate that would not be possible by ABA, OT, or ST alone.

                      One more point of data for your reference.

                    • I can see that you have a lot of strong feelings on this. But uh... what are you actually responding to? Your points don't address anythign I talked about... please - hear me out - let me try again - I'll try to boil down what I'm talking about. And please - please - please - read everything twice before responding. I'm really trying to have a meaningful discussion, but it seems that you're projecting some sort of viewpoint on me that I don't have.

                      First off - I wrote about that "1 in 150" figure already.

                    • Here is a direct quote from you:

                      Chelating... great... I have a gluten free diet and a bridge to sell you also.

                      I hope you've also enrolled your son in an ABA program while you pursue a "cure".

                      What was that? When you mock chelation, gluten free diets, and "cures", aren't you inferring that:

                      • This has nothing to do with mercury? (Hence, chelation is a ridiculous thing to do)
                      • Autism is incurable (something which is proven to be incorrect), and
                      • The only thing that works is therapy (like ABA)

                      The one

                  • Just to be clear - I have no doubt that there are Autistic children who suffer from immunological problems or digestive problems - and that they may get worse as a result of excessive exposure to gluten or mercury. But the idea that they *cause* Autism, or that removing them once the brain is already malformed can somehow cure it, is laughable, and completely goes against any serious study I've ever seen.

                • Re:The link is definitely there. (Score:4, Insightful)

                  by MadAhab ( 40080 ) <slasher@nosPAm.ahab.com> on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @04:00PM (#12884636) Homepage Journal
                  Don't be an idiot. Any parent who has had a kid with medical issues knows that before very long, you become far more aware of the daily ups and downs, ins and outs of the child's condition than any medical professional anywhere. And pretty soon, you get to know the little corner of science that affects your child very well.

                  Hey, dummy, how do scientific hypotheses get formed? Scientists turn casual observations - "hmm, these dietary changes seem to improve symptoms of autism" - or logical conjectures - "hey, mercury is really fucking poisonous in general - shouldn't we look for negative effects from giving so much of an untested mercury-containing substance to babies?" - into formal studies blah blah blah. This takes time - but the observations of parents will be a critical link in this chain. Those parents report chelating to have a positive effect very consistently.

                  Something else I'll tell you about parents and their children's medical problems: if you knew anything about dealing with a sick child - clearly you don't - you'd know that very easy in talking to parents to distinguish between overzealous, overoptimistic people who fool themselves and/or blame doctors at every opportunity and latch on to every quack cure in sight and those parents who are thoughtful, powerful agents in their child's care.

                  The suppression of information reported in the Salon article is fucking scary - large scale epidemiological databases showing dead obvious connections, then said data is removed from public view permanently by officials with deep industry connections defending their own policies. Whether the thimoseral connection shakes out or not, that public health policy was made this way is incredibly fucking stupid. But you don't care as long as you can take the lazy pose of a skeptic.

                  Science wouldn't progress quite so quickly without the parents observations being given credibility. Did you know that until the 1970s, most infant surgery - from circumcision on up - was done without anaesthesia? Why? Because scoffing skeptics like you (only with MDs) insisted their nervous systems were to immature to feel pain. In retrospect, we can see pretty clearly how stupidly obviously wrong that was. Striking a skeptical pose doesn't make you scientific, it just makes you arrogant enough to believe your version of things is "obvious" and others are "fooling themselves".

                  • Idiot eh? I can tell that you did a really good job fact checking the article. Oh wait. You didn't - you just swallowed the whole thing without any critical thought. Maybe you should do some research before making YOURSELF look like an ass.

                    The only thing that is "scary" about that article is what a serious hackjob and scare piece it is. The sad thing is that I had a lot - a lot - of repect for RFK Jr before that article.

                    And don't take my word for it - please. Look it up for yourself. Take a look at the

  • Opposing viewpoints and reg-free link (Score:4, Informative)

    by SchnauzerGuy ( 647948 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @01:25AM (#12869944)
    First, a registration-free link: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/73 95411 [rollingstone.com]

    Then some counterpoints to the article:
    And finally, as was posted earlier, the MetaFilter thread [metafilter.com] is well worth reading before making up your mind one way or another.

  • Half-truths (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @01:39AM (#12869990) Homepage Journal
    There is unquestionably a link between mercury and brain disorders - mercury is a well-known neurotoxin, and is linked to all kinds of madness and dementia, especially in the hatting industry, where mercury was used to soften felt.


    Autism is not on the list of known effects and many of those who do make the link are involved in expensive remedies that have no established effectiveness whatsoever. As such, I would regard them as being just as dubious as the American pharmaceutical industry.


    Now, it is well established that the CDC and FDA have been involved in gross coverups and scandals - not too long ago, they were caught having forged the results of "studies" in Africa on an antiviral. The results weren't merely "not good", they were utterly bogus. Further research actually showed that patients had a distinct habit of dying from the medication, which was damn inconvenient for those wanting to make a fast buck.


    It is entirely possible that certain vaccinations MAY have untoward impact on the brain - we don't know all of the allergic responses to vaccinations and have no means of predicting them in advance. (Why do you think you're asked to sit and wait, after getting shots? Because they need someone to prop the wall up?)


    However, the link is unproven to be connected with autism and if you look at the mechanics of autism, there is no reason to believe that that is where the link lies.


    Autism involves sensory overload shutting parts of the higher levels of the brain down. This is why a severely autistic child is quite capable of interacting with environments that are relatively slow-moving and over a very small fraction of the field of vision. Anything more simply puts the brain into shock.


    It is also why geeks are commonly associated with higher-functioning autism and aspergers, as computers are generally not moving a great deal. The range a person needs to contend with is vastly reduced.


    Nobody - absolutely nobody - knows the cause of autism, or how to diagnose it except empirically. There are no diagnostics beyond observing a person's responses, which is somewhat medieval. Studies of autism involving PET, CAT, fMRI or EEG devices are limited at best (I know of exactly none), so the amount of neurological data is limited.


    Autism is likely to be genetic, as couples on the autistic spectrum do seem to have a higher chance of producing autistic children, but even that is not really proven. It could equally well be dietary. No gene has been found linked to autism, despite some work in this area, which raises the possibility that there is no gene to be found.


    In the meantime, I don't suggest cutting back on vaccinations over fear of autism, though because vaccinations can have unexpected effects, I don't advise ever taking a vaccination unnecessarily. It is not something to mess with. On the other hand, superbugs, misdiagnosed lethal infections, killer viruses, etc, are considerably more lethal. If a vaccination is a live hand grenade, the pathogens we live with are a live neutron bomb.


    My advice to those concerned about any kind of mental disease is to increase your intake of follic acid to twice current recommended levels, increase your intake of fresh fruits and don't mix citric acid and vitamin C with anything with a high metal content (tea, coffee, swordfish, etc) as those two CAN (under some circumstances) increase your uptake of some of the nastier metals.


    Do that and I don't think you'll have anything to worry about. At least, nothing more than usual.

    • Re:Half-truths (Score:2, Interesting)

      by loose canons ( 823774 )
      ...In the meantime, I don't suggest cutting back on vaccinations over fear of autism, ...
      That is the public reason given by CDC for bending over backwards to keep any vaccine on the market: they know, to 3 sigma, what happens if you DONT get vaccinated and, having satisfied themselves of the cost/benefit tradeoff of the vaccination, set about downplaying those sideeffects so the public wont avoid the vaccine. Only problem is, its an incredibly high stakes game for Big Pharma and the poor and poorly publi

    • Chelating? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DamienMcKenna ( 181101 )
      One of the surprising apsects of autism is the number of people who have had dramatic recovering from it by chelating metals out of their body [chelationt...online.com] - quite surprising indeed.

      Damien

      • Re:Chelating? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
        I suggest you visit this site. http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/t himerosal.html [quackwatch.org]

        Chelation to treat autism is about as useful as a tinfoil hat. Why would you take the word of a site that is clearly for the Chelation industry?

    • Re:Half-truths (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ebh ( 116526 ) *
      Studies of autism involving PET, CAT, fMRI or EEG devices are limited at best (I know of exactly none), so the amount of neurological data is limited.

      True, but this recent one [neuropsych...eviews.com] is definitely of interest.

      My son is on the autistic spectrum. Our "safe side" is that we insist on thimerosal-free vaccines, but he still does get vaccinated. Even if this issue gets put to bed once and for all, we're still not going to inject mercury into our kids, for all the obvious reasons.

      The other thing we do, which is

      • That was extremely smart, as school practices are probably amongst the most dangerous outside of the third world. And going for thimerosal-free vaccines is also smart, as although I an not convinced of a link to autism, I am convinced there is a high risk of some brain disorder developing. Taking chances for the sake of taking chances (which is what the FDA does) is stupid.

    • Re:Half-truths (Score:4, Interesting)

      by avi33 ( 116048 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @10:02AM (#12872238) Homepage
      I don't suggest cutting back on vaccinations over fear of autism, though because vaccinations can have unexpected effects.

      The drug companies have not used it in child vaccines since 2002. In the US. As for other countries, most notably third world countries that are accepting "charitable donations" from drug companies, are stuck being guinea pigs until the true risks are discovered.

      So you've got drug companies on the one hand saying "there's no risk" and on the other hand, removing the suspect chemical and lobbying congress to make it impossible to be found liable.

      I don't think TFA would have such a sense of outrage and urgency if this hadn't been bubbling up for some time. It was on the cover of the NY Times magazine back in 2001 or so, and that article illustrated the possible risk and stated that more comprehensive studies were underway. Those studies have since been completed, and no matter how you cut it, suggest a risk. Maybe not the smoking gun that everyone needs to put this to bed, but enough of a risk that the drug companies themselves could no longer claim the lack of risk. So they removed it from the US supply, where the threat of litigation is great.

      The outrageous part of it is that the former Director of the US Pediatric Vaccination program went on record (in 97 or so) stating that we since it's not a critical component of the vaccines (it makes it cheaper to produce), and it may be a risk, it should be removed while further studies are completed. The drug companies refused to consider that possibility, as that would be close to an admission of liability.

      No tinfoil hats needed here.

      • Re:Half-truths (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dasunt ( 249686 )

        The drug companies have not used it in child vaccines since 2002. In the US . As for other countries, most notably third world countries that are accepting "charitable donations" from drug companies, are stuck being guinea pigs until the true risks are discovered.

        So, you are weighing a known risk (risk of childhood diseases) against an unknown risk (risk that vaccines will cause autism) and assuming that there is a problem?

        In that case, let me inform you that the US population

    • Re:Half-truths (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )
      Well for me the link was when my son had a MMR shot and stopped talking. His actions also changed a lot and eventually he was diagnosed with autism. There definately seemed to be a correlation.
      Interestingly my sons symptons are much the same as my own just more severe (officially I was diagnosed as oxygen starved at birth though I have an IQ in the high 140s. State of diagnoses in the late 60's)
      One other thing of interest is that my son started talking and mellowed out enourmously after cutting out all diar

  • Interesting article... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by benjamindees ( 441808 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @01:40AM (#12869995) Homepage
    Searching for children who had not been exposed to mercury in vaccines -- the kind of population that scientists typically use as a "control" in experiments -- Olmsted scoured the Amish of Lancaster County, Penn., who refuse to immunize their infants. Given the national rate of autism, Olmsted calculated that there should be 130 autistics among the Amish. He found only four. One had been exposed to high levels of mercury from a power plant. The other three -- including one child adopted from outside the Amish community -- had received their vaccines.

    • Re:Interesting article... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @02:33AM (#12870130) Homepage
      Yah, I read that too. The problem is the "control" group he found is just terrible. The Amish lead such a different lifestyle, eat different foods (probbably not a lot of foods with preservatives, pesiticides, etc probbably don't eat a lot of high sugar foods, etc) that focusing only on one of the differences (vaccinations) seems to make the whole study meaningless.

      It could also be simply the Amish kids are diagnosed with Autism far less than non-Amish. Do the Amish go to the doctor as much?

      The article is troubling, and I'd be interested to learn more about the whole controversy, but I can't say it's very definitive.

    • Re:Interesting article... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pla ( 258480 )
      Given the national rate of autism, Olmsted calculated that there should be 130 autistics among the Amish. He found only four.

      When looking for a good control group (though, you can't really call them that in a post hoc study), you want them as similar as possible to the treatment group.

      The Amish live a radically different lifestyle from your typical American. Does their low Autism rate result from a low vaccination rate? Does it result from using minimal, if any, AC power? Pesticides? Growth hormones
  • Many savants lose thier skills when they are forced to improve their socual and comunication skills.Autism is different than brain damage due to toxins.Many high functioning autistic people do not want to be cured.I think that normal people waste too much energy discriminating against others that are different.Too much mercury intake causes brain dammage, not autism.Riding a motorcycle without a helmet may cause brain dammage, not autism.

  • What a waste. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hubs99 ( 318852 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @08:29AM (#12871474)
    The link between thimerosal is shaky at best. There have countless studies looking at populations like the swedes who removed ALL thimerosol from their vacines and still had the same number of autism cases. Autism is not going to be an easy fix. Parents of autistic children focus on mercury and other contaminates because there are pathological similarities between mercury poisoning and autism. Someone is eventually going to bring up the research who found a strain of rats that were deathly allergic to thimerosal so I want to touch on this too. This population of rats was screen for their allergy to thimerosal. It would be like taking a population of dogs who were allergic to cats, and breeding those dogs which had the worst allergies to the cats, Repeat indefinetely as rats/mice can breed every 2 weeks or so. Also this research will not allow any one else to use these mice as they are a patented strain of mice and the last I heard he wasn't going to allow outsiders to use them because he wanted first crack at all possible research from them. This crusade against thimerosal is based on peoples ignorance and inability to erlationally look at the evidence. It is a quick way to blame for a illness that no one is at fault for. 30 yaers ago people blaimed distant mothers as the cause of autism.
  • Why are all of the studies that are being funded designed to prove that there is _no_ link between them?

    Who is funding these studies and how can anyone involved claim this to be sound scientific research when the research itself starts off with a bias?

    I'll feel better about this after some proper unbiased research has been done.
  • And shreds this crap [blogspot.com]. Read and learn.
  • "How often are studies successfully altered by funding agencies to conceal negative results?"

    From my experience in other fields, this would be a regular occurrance.

    At one time I was a chief engineer for a commercial AM radio station, a new construction in the same area that Marconi orignally used for his US experiments. After construction, field strength measurements showed excellent protection for the dominant station on the frequency about a hundred miles away -- in fact they were so good, they were at
  • I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose of breaking a major public health story to release it in Salon, where you have to decide to be advertised to (by perhaps a major pharma? I'll never know) before you can take up arms against overbearing corporatism.. wtf?

  • Duh! (Score:2)

    by stevew ( 4845 )
    The son of one of my closest friends has Asberger syndrome ( a relative of autism - sometimes it is classified as a form of autism). Well guess blinkin what. He has a hyper-sensitivity to Mercury which was used as the preservative in his innoculations a few years ago. He has been undergoing treatment for heavy metal poisoning for a couple of years now and it IS helping...though not a cure.

    Further, it turns out that the drug companies continued to use the mercury based preservative for upto two years AFTE

    • Re:Duh! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      IAAP (Psychologist), and I've worked with hundreds of children with all sorts of neuropsychological problems, many of these being Autistic-Aspergerish in nature.

      I am not commenting directly on your son's friend's case, as I haven't even met them, and all sorts of things happen to cause problems for children. Heavy metals do cause massive neurological problems in children, and I have seen the effects. Having said that:

      It is extremely common in the Autism-Asperger's communities for families to come up with
      • People want something to blame for their troubles and scary chemicals have replaced the fairies and witches that the same people would have blamed 100 years ago.

        To claim that a particular child's disease was caused by mercury in their vaccine is to ignore and disparage the millions of children who were saved from disease by that same vaccine; not to mention it ignores those countries that have stopped using mercury in their vaccines yet haven't seen a drop in the occurrences of autism.
  • there was a direct correlation between the amount of mecury pollution in the area and the rate of autism in the area. Here's a randomly chosen link:

    http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/34AD7ABA-F 1 F1-4677-9A24-CEB4FA637690.htm [aljazeera.net]

    Anyway, if it really was the vaccines (which I find higly unlikely) then shouldn't we have had a HUGE drop off in autsim rates over the last few years?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • In brief.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by RatPh!nk ( 216977 ) <ratpH1nk@gM a i l . c om> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @12:02PM (#12873524)
    Ok, I am a 2nd year medical student and a researcher here at my university. I have a B.S. in Biochemistry, so I'd like to think I know a little about something :) First the molecule itself, thimerosal [cambridgesoft.com] To say this molecule contains mercury is akin to saying triclosan has chlorine (it does). You are talking about breaking a C-Hg or a S-Hg bond which unless enzymatically activated, may be tough for your body to pull off due to the bond energies involved. Also, you would need an enzyme with some specificity for this molecule, or a specific transporter to move this across the endo/epithelial borders. It raises some questions even at face value, to say the least.
    Here is the brunt of the IOM study/panel:

    A 14-person panel of experts urged more research on autism but said further pursuit of possible links between vaccines and the devastating neurological disorder is probably not worth the money and effort. Reports published in 2001 by the same committee found no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, and insufficient evidence to draw conclusions about thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative added to multiple-dose vials of vaccine. Since then, enough new studies have been published to confidently reject both theories, the panel said. Especially convincing were a Danish study showing no difference in the rate of autism between children who got thimerosal-containing vaccines and those who did not and a British study showing no relationship between the introduction of MMR and autism rates, or between the timing of a vaccination and the onset of autism symptoms. "The vaccine hypotheses are not currently supported by the evidence," wrote the panel, which consisted of physicians, neuroscientists, epidemiologists, statisticians and a nurse.

    Skeptism is how science progresses. If you have read the "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (had to do it for a class), you would see this is how science is forwarded. That said, studies has been published in both Europe and the U.S. clearly showing no link. Skeptism, when shown to be unfounded needs to be put to rest. Literally millions of lives have been saved by vaccination programs worldwide.

    The current theory favored by many experts is that autism is a genetically-based disorder that occurs before birth.
    Studies of persons with autism are finding abnormalities in brain structures that develop in the first few weeks of fetal development.

    The original report, published in the Lancet in 1995 included a editorial piece criticizing it, partly due to its very small study population (12 patients). Another facet of the story that is oft left out of the discussion is that the hypothesis, which had no data associated with it, was that perhaps the MMR vaccination prevents gut absorption of minerals and vitamins which caused the autism.

    Anyway, there is alot of data involving this, which I have referenced below. I would like to note that I have been taking this primarily from a piece [quackwatch.org] written by Dr. Barrett. The collection is quite complete and slightly longish. Have a go at it.

    References

    • A question of harm. CNN & Time broadcast, Oct 3, 1999.
    • Liam's mother Shelley H. Reynolds founded and serves as president of Little Angels [littleangels.org], an organization intended to "bring the issues of autism from individual homes to the forefront of national dialogue." Dr. Cave is a board member described on the Web site as "a leader and a fighter for the alternative therapies that seem to work with many of our children. She believes in using drugs as a last resort, concentr
  • Because how else do the proponents of this theory explain the inconvenient fact that Autism is actually linked to defects during fetal development? If the concern is about vaccines and brain development - then we should be working on preventing women or are trying to get pregnant, or are pregnant from getting them...
  • Thimerasol is a source of Mercury as is many other sources. Mercury is known to cause autistic symptoms caused from nurological degredation, nutritional deficiencies and digestive imbalances.

    The issue with all the research is the assumption that all bodies are the same and we all know that this is not the case with the human body.

    The key process that is extremely important is Chelation which is a natural process. Some of us are better than others at it. This natural chelation process, if missing will grea
  • So pharmacos get to count "marketing" their poison drugs to the FDA as part of their "marketing" budget? Because they claim that marketing costs are the majority of the costs of bringing new drugs to market. Including the ones that fail in the lab, but pass the boardroom with flying colors.

  • Amish (Score:2)

    by azav ( 469988 )
    How many Amish get autism? ow many Amish children get vaccines?

    Using this approach, there is a strong link between vaccines and autism and between vaccines with thimerosal and autism.

    I do believe there was a 60 Minutes report on this recently.
  • Isn't the name of the compound Thiomersal? [dermnetnz.org]


    The radix "thio" comes from the greek "theio", meaning sulphur. Thiomersal contains both mercury and sulphur and is the active ingredient in Merthiolate, a shortening of "mercurothiolate".

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