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A Link Between Autism and Thimerosal?
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?"
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
> And I don't see how they can't be held liable if a link isn't found.
Could you rephrase that with a few less n'ts?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I often write my elected national representatives (though they are not there due to my vote :( )and rant about general environmental degradation. Do they have a friend or loved one who lives a truly healthy lifestyle -veg head, orgo, exercises, blah blah blah- that got cancer of some kind? Do they wonder where it came from? How 'bout some legislation to get things back on track?
Evil as the drug companies are, their chemo crap put me not in remission, but cured of testicualr cancer. Now I am monitored for "side effects" of the chemo drugs- like leukemia. The drug companies giveth, and the drug companies taketh away. I love a good conspiracy theory- amazing how many are true. Can't wait to see how this one plays out.
BTW, whats wrong with an "environmentalist" with name like "Kennedy"?
sig wig dig jig rig big mig fig gig higg rig pig tig zig
Current US govt is so in bed with big pharm that they are putting into effect a Federal plan to mentally screen kids from 5 years on up and prescribe expensive SSRI brain drugs without parential consent.
Before you suggest a tinfoil hat read some of the story here:
Site on the left
Site on the (Christian?) right
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 due to a conflict of interest. Furthermore, a recent study of Danish children has shown rates of autism continued to increase even after the removal of thimersol from vaccines (via a MetaFilter discussion 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 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.
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Then some counterpoints to the article:
And finally, as was posted earlier, the MetaFilter thread is well worth reading before making up your mind one way or another.
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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
While I agree that your typical drug company is about as evil as it gets,
Such exaggerations don't help anyone and what's worse is that they may discourage the young and clever from going into an industry where such people can do a lot of good.
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.
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.
Riiiight.
The RIAA charges $17 for a CD and you call it "over priced" and "evil". Drug companies fix pricing so that they're more expensive than hard core narcotics and they're an "industry that does a lot of good".
Funding research for you to exploit isn't "doing good". It's just a matter of "doing business".
"Drug companies fix pricing so that they're more expensive than hard core narcotics and they're an "industry that does a lot of good"."
What I find interesting is the difference in price of those drugs on either side of the US/Canada border. Why doesn't the US adopt a similar policy of restricting their price? They are addicted to the economic benefits of the situation they have created in selling out their own citizens. Particularly the less fortunate ones.
You can't trust any corporation to do anything that doesn't directly increase their revenue stream, its just not in their nature. We have to put restrictions on them if we want them to play fair.
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.
Even a layman could have guessed that autism is often (if not always) the result of environmental factors.
Except that there's a lot of evidence that shows that autism is the result of genetic factors.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Drug companies fix pricing so that they're more expensive than hard core narcotics and they're an "industry that does a lot of good".
The fact that people are willing to pay so much is proof that they're doing a lot of good.
Funding research for you to exploit isn't "doing good". It's just a matter of "doing business".
It's both.
Cancer is a natural inevitability. If you live long enough, you will get cancer. While certain activities may reduce or increase the risk of uncontrolled cellular growth, there is no way to be 100% safe.
Cancer is the result of genetic mutation that leads to uncontrolled cellular growth. By stepping outside you are exposing yourself to radiation that has the potential to mutate your DNA and cause cancer.
When a cell divides, it creates copies of its chromosomes. There are an incredible number of ways for this process to fail. And though there are a large number of safeguards to prevent this, it is not impossible to have an error in the copying process. These errors most certainly can cause cancer.
So, while the risk of cancer is increased with certain activities, no one should feel invincible if they are organic vegan exercise enthusiasts.
-KD
I doubt most readers of this article will notice that point. They are probably only going to notice the "vaccines make your kids sick" argument.
This might lead to more people who are susceptable to serious diseases, the kind of contagious diseases that we have not often seen in my lifetime.
When I was a teen my city had a minor flare up with Measles, largely among older teen and college kids whose immunity from childhood vaccines had atrophyed. Measels sounds benign, but "as many as 1 out of 20 children with measles gets pneumonia. About 1 child in every 1,000 who get measles will get encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave your child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, 1 or 2 will die from it."
Vaccines have a failure rate, it is not a concern as long as the general population is well protected so the disease cannot spread. Discouraging people from getting vaccinated puts innocent lives at risk.My grandmother died from Hep B, something that a vaccine would have prevented. I wonder how many people might die from preventable diseases due to this article.
Part of the drug price in the US goes to subsidise the lower profit in Canada.
All I know is that my son, as a baby, was starting to put blocks neatly in a row (an important developmental step) before his MMR shot. A week after his shot, he couldn't do it anymore and regressed about 5-6 months behind.
He wouldn't talk until he was 4, then all he would say is "Hi, I'm , I'm 4". Seriously, that's all he would say along with maybe a yes or no. He called both his mom and me "dad" for about a year.
He's not full-blown autistic, but he is on the autistic spectrum. He's a special case, because he's apparently "borderline" on about a dozen different things, which makes it very difficult to get help because he's not actually diagnosed with autism.
All I know is that after the MMR, I lost my little boy, and I'm just starting to get him back now. I've really missed him since he's been gone these past 5 years.
Scientific debates often work this way in universities too.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
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 - quite surprising indeed.
Damien
I had scarlet fever in high school, and got completely over it (including rheumatic fever and hives) in a couple of weeks.
My grandfather had scarlet fever in high school and it took him more than a year to get over it.
Too bad they made me get a penicillin shot. I probably would have been cured much quicker without it, like my grandfather.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
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.
No Comment.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Earlier research intentionally did NOT include mice which had known immune system defects. In the experiments by Dr. Mady Hornig, the mice which were known to have immune system problems ALL developed the mouse version of autism - 100%.
Which begs the question - why did the first group of studies use only mice with no known problems, and where did the funding come from for those studies? The earlier studies knew about Dr. Hornig's study, and intentionally did not use it in their work. Sounds as if they knew what results they wanted! This all means that, if a young child does have immune system problems, receiving injections containing mercury is far more likely to cause neurological damage - which the "establishment", protecting the drug companies, does not want known. Why did mercurochrome, a painless germ killer we all used as kids, disappear from the market in the ? 60?
And shreds this crap. 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 the lower limit of the theoretical values based on the data for the area published by the FCC.
So I signed off on the permit for permanent license. But management would not allow the data to be sent. Their argument was that the values found could not be duplicated by another engineer and might change due to climate change, raising or lowering of the aquifer, etc. and would I raise the values in the application?
In fact, I was being asked to change the data of an experiment, which data was to be sent to the FCC, where it would be added to the data provided by others. Thinking the pool of data the FCC uses might be polluted by political rather than scientific considerations, I refigured my results using Marconi's old values instead of the FCC's and found Marconi's values fit the experiment MUCH better than the FCC's.
The answer is, YES, data are changed routinely. I am only glad the atomic clock and the meter stick cannot easily be played with for political gain.
Trust the governemt's data NOT. It will just get you involved in a metaphorical Iraq, looking for WMDs.
And I don't see how they can't be held liable if a link isn't found. After all, if a woman is a crackhead or drinks a lot, she can be held accountable for her child's defects (and negligence).
A crackhead can't get a rider written into the Patriot Act or an Omnibus spending bill, as the pharmaceutical industry has.
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?
And what's the cause of these age-old problems? Must be the Vaccines! After all, they all have that in common.
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 AFTER they said it was gone from the product!
Who is at fault here?
We won't bother to go into what it took to get the diagnosis of Mercury poisoning from conventional medical practitioners here...just say ALOT!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
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.
Clear, Dark Skies
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:
1 F1-4677-9A24-CEB4FA637690.htm
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/34AD7ABA-F
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?
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/thimer osal_distortions/#comments
This space available.
Here is the brunt of the IOM study/panel:
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 written by Dr. Barrett. The collection is quite complete and slightly longish. Have a go at it.
References
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
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...
Suicide deaths during anti-depressant trials regarded as trade secrets by the FDA
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
You seem to be just as much a victim of misinformation, relying, for instance, on a completely debunked Danish "study" 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 to set off some warning bells.
My firstborn son was diagnosed as autistic last January, at the age of 2 1/2. We had been increasinly concerned about his language delay, and specific stereotypical behaviors (hand flapping, head banging, etc). Looking back, we believe that these behaviors started appearing at around 18 months of age. Well -- guess what - during a 1-month period at that time, he had received 8 vaccines in 6 shots (including 5 vaccines in 3 shots on the day he got his MMR, and a flu shot 3 weeks later).
My wife had also received some dental fillings (amalgam) during her pregnancy. Despite denials by the ADA, there is also statistically significant data that shows that recent dental fillings in pregnant women will cause autism. I participate in various discussion groups related to autism - and this, too, seems to be a recurring theme: Multiple dental fillings around the time of pregnancy.
Then there is the genetic component. Some individuals are more prone to mercury poisoining than others. In partciular, individuals with a high level of early cognitive activity ("intelligence") are susceptible - because they tend to have higher releases of the peptite "glutamate" in their brains and nervous systems. (Glutamate, if not properly converted to GABA, and without proper levels of glutathione, will cause sensory overload - and over time kill a large percentage of nerve/brain cells in the body. Glutathione is normally produced in the liver, but this production is inhibited by mercury. For more scientific detail on this subject, see articles by Dr. Amy Yasko at www.autismanswer.com.
The only reason there is any controversy around the link between mercury poisoning and autism (and for that matter, asperger's, ADHD, ADD, alzheimers, and parkinson's) is political: the self-interest of pharmaseutical companies like Merck, coupled with unwillingness to face the reality as seen in bodies and organizations like the Centers for Disease Control, National Institute of Health, and American Dental Association.
That site should be:
www.autismanswer.com
So genetically, a shitload of the population just happened to mutate at the same time when previous generations had not autism? Use some common sense, what makes more sense, genetic mutation on a grand scale, or environmental effects on the whole population? And where is this genetic evidence that you speak of??
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 greatly increse the potential to build up mercury, and other toxic substances in the body.
The problem with all this research is that they are currently unable to measure this chelative ability of test subjects and as such have a sketchy baseline to form any conclusions on.
It may be possible to avoid issues like autism by doing the following:
- Avoid mercury and other toxic substances from getting into the body
--- Avoid Thimerasol, fatty meats, large body fish, other specific seafoods
- Increase natural chelators to assist the body in removing these toxic substances from the body --- Silantro is a fantastic natural chelator and should be in everybodies diet.
Use your common sense, If a particle is known to be toxic, you should remove that substance. That is what chelation is all about.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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.
--
make install -not war
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.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
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".
Assortative mating + selective pressure. Thanks to the computer age, suddenly Asperger's isn't such a bad thing any more. So you have all these bright people moving to Silicon Valley and other tech meccas, marrying each other, and giving birth to a surprisingly large proportion of Autistic and Asperger's kids.
Not just my opinion. There've been studies on this.
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- profit
p.s. it took 5 seconds to findthis comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
A crackhead can't get a rider written into the Patriot Act
Well, GW isn't talking about his past drug use, so we're not sure if that's true or not
Also, there is some cursory evidence to suggest autism is at least affected by something on the x chromosone. The rate of autism in boys is much higher than in girls, but when girls do have it, it tends to be much more severe. Essentially the belief is that if you have two x chromosones, and one of them is bad the other can compensate and you just end up on the low side of normal. If you are stuck with XY, it is more difficult to compensate and you end up diagnosed as autistic. If you have two bad X, you're just diagnosed as severely autistic.
It is likely that it is neither purely genetic nor purely environmental but some combination of factors needs to arrise. Hence it is so difficult to diagnose exactly what is going on.
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.
First off - I wrote about that "1 in 150" figure already. Its a misreading of the CDC data. See my post up the chain on that. But forget about that - its a tangental issue.
Second - I'm not disputing that Mercury could be responsible. But I do dispute that childhood vaccines are the cause - though they could be accelerating or compounding the problem - they CAN'T be the ultimate cause. (please read ALL my other points before responding).
Third - You have this bizarre idea that if something goes wrong before birth, its genetic. Fetal Development issues DOES NOT mean Genetic. In fact - a rise in rates imply ENVIRONMENTAL reasons. Yes - environmental. Such as Mercury, or other toxins.
Fourth - My main point - Is that studies from the past 5 years show that Autism starts during fetal development. As in, before they were born, their brains were forming incorrectly. And I don't mean slightly wrong, or have tendancies that may not become Autism. I mean that Autistic children are now known to be already long down the path long before behavioral issues are noticed. So children can seem perfectly fine for a while - Just like Alzheimers - which starts well before it is noticeable - Autism may need some time to compound before the brain abnormalities interfere with behavior.
Fifth - I've posted the links, and summaries before. For some reason you just won't read them, or automatically assume that these articles about development issues = genetic problem. There are plenty of infants out there with gross deformities and perfectly fine genes. Fetal Alchohol Syndrome is a well known example.
Just to summarize - thanks to new research, Autism is now known (not just suspected) to start before birth, though still only detectable once children are 1-2 years old. If Autism starts before birth, then childhood vaccines can't be the ultimate cause. I have posted links to studies and articles that are undisputed. Mercury could be responsible. But at worst vaccines given to infants are just making a bad situation worse. They can't be the ultimate cause.
The unethical truth-dodging of the vaccine industry and the numerous conflicts of interests running in the 10000 times the typical researcher's salary are NOT proof that vaccines causes autism.
And by the way. The vaccine-strain smallpox found in the gut of some autistics could be just that autistics have porous gut. Could be related to autism but not the cause at all! Same goes for any peculiarity of mercury metabolism including the famous metallothionen study.
Do not see "proof of cause" where there could be only statistical correlation!!
Just don't be surprised if mercury is proven non-cause of autism someday (but still causes mercury poisoning).
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
MadCapz, your assertion is false. Ever read a reasearch journal article? Try it sometime.
If you can call it news, it's really old.
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. (Wilde)