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New Study Negates Autism/Mercury Link

10/20/2009 01:11:00 admin

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By Rachel Howell Stockton

The question concerning whether or not children who receive vaccinations are more likely to have autism or autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may have been indirectly and/or partially answered by the results of a study reporting that children with the disorder do not have higher levels of mercury in the bloodstream than children who are developing normally.

What does mercury have to do with vaccinations? Not much, at least currently. The preservative in the MMR vaccination used to be thimerosal, which has concentrated levels of mercury. The theory regarding the mercury/autism relationship has gained prevalence over the last several years; the researchers involved in the study wanted to clear up some of the confusion that has arisen as a result.

Not that other studies haven’t been performed, they have. But the journal Environmental Health Perspectives is reporting that prior studies lacked credibility and consistency.

The researchers studied 452 children from the ages of 2-5; some of the children had autism or an autism spectrum disorder, some had other developmental issues, such as Down Syndrome, others were developing normally.

The results showed that in actuality, children with autism had lower levels of mercury in their blood. However, as parents of autistic children are well aware, autistic children are picky eaters; the lower levels in these kids was attributed to the fact that they ate less fish than the other children in the study.

CDC estimates show that approximately 1 out of every 150 children has an ASD, something that warrants an “urgent public health concern. . . and a concerted and substantial national response,” according to the governmental health agency's website.

The current study, however, is not without its problems. First of all, most of the children analyzed were immunized after thimerosal was removed from vaccines. Additionally, mercury has a half life of only a few months; this means mercury happened post diagnosis in virtually all of the children. Only time will tell if the study actually clears up confusion, or if in actuality, it muddied the waters even more.

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Comments (8 posted):

Stan on 10/20/2009 03:16:22

Sounds like a study funded by the vaccine industry!
I know it's just a coincidence that autism is completely absent from the Amish community, where they don't vaccinate at all, or use electricity. Just a coincidence.

Maggy on 10/20/2009 15:56:46

This is odd. Parents of kids with autism are concerned about the ethylmercury injected into their children at birth and again at 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 months of age in the 1990's. This mercury clears the blood and enters the brain in a matter of days. They could have saved the taxpayers alot of money if they had just looked at 3 studies done since 2002 which clearly shows this. What is the real purpose of this study, to generate missleading headlines? Also, seems kinda odd that this came out right when the mercury laden H1N1 vaccine hits the market.

Reba on 10/20/2009 23:45:34

First of all, Amish people also share a common gene pool, and since Autism is a genetic disorder, it's a leap to say that they don't have an incidence of it because they don't vaccinate. LEAP. Also, there has been study after study ad nauseum to show that there is NO LINK between Mecury or Thimerisol and Autism. GET OFF YOUR HIGH and PARANOID HORSE!!! As the parent of an Autistic child, I am sick to DEATH of people saying that it has anything to do with the stupid vaccinations! Let's MOVE ON to find something meaningful that may actually help these kids. And, for the record, there is less Mercury in your "mercury-laden" H1N1 vaccine than in a can of tuna. Get a REAL clue.

Laurette Janak on 10/21/2009 01:59:07

I think this piece is a perfect example of how people act like they know something and then show how much they don't know when they write or speak. Here the author Rachel Howell Stockton states that the MMR vaccination used to contain thimerosal. WRONG!!!! the MMR never contained thimerosal. Try getting your facts straight before reporting on a story.

nhokkanen on 10/21/2009 02:26:52

Oops, Ms. Author -- Thimerosal would render the MMR useless. To find out which vaccines currently contain ethylmercury, look at the FDA website's Thimerosal table.

nhokkanen on 10/21/2009 02:28:37

Reba, do you inject tuna? Consider Googling the mercury research of former U-Kentucky Chemistry chair Boyd E. Haley, PhD. Or the 2005 primate Thimerosal study by Burbacher et al.

Gary S. Goldman, Ph.D. on 10/21/2009 04:40:02

The statement in the article, "The preservative in the MMR vaccination used to be thimerosal, which has concentrated levels of mercury." is invalid. MMR vaccine NEVER was preserved with thimerosal. On the other hand, Hepatitis B and other used to be. Currently, multi-dose vials of flu vaccine are still preserved with thimerosal.

tony bateson on 12/22/2009 17:42:29

It is truly amazing to me to read the extraordinary nonsense seen in many publications about vaccines.

To the best of my knowledge MMR never had Thimerosal but nor is it absolutely clear which vaccines did. Then we get to at what point childhood vaccines in the USA were clear of Thimerosal. If we knew those things reliably we could look at children born three or four years after Thimerosal disappeared and then perhaps have a good idea whether mercury is incriminated or not.

But I have a better idea. In the UK we have more than three million individuals born since 1966 who have never had childhhod vaccines and do you what it seems that none of them is autistic. If we had some financial support we could mount a UK study to establish the prevalence of autism in unvaccinated kids. I'll bet a $1000 at least if I can find any takers that it is nil!

Tony Bateson
Oxford, UK