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Thimerosal Does Not Cause Autism
jamie found an article over at Washington Monthly discussing the recent finding that there is no link between thimerosal and autism. It seems that after the mercury-based vaccine preservative was withdrawn from use in 1999, no drop in autism rates has been observed in a large California study. Here's the Science Daily writeup on the study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
No, the scientists and physicians who claimed a link have been in a very small minority. Nice attempt to discredit the climate science by implication, though.
The anti-thimerisol movement has been driven largely by parents of autistic children looking for an explanation (I'm not unsympathetic, but that shouldn't affect the scientific method) and the anti-vaccination lobby, which is a mix of paranoiacs and people who can't see that a small number of vaccine-caused deaths is preferable to a larger number of disease-caused deaths.
There are actually legitimate health concerns related to the use of mercury as a preservative, but since they are not as dramatic or emotionally charged as the subject of autism, they seldom enter the discussion.
Furthermore, even in the case where scientific consensus MAY be wrong, it's most sensible for those not directly involved in research challenging the consensus to proceed as if it is correct, unless doing so were demonstrably damaging. For instance, it is pretty sensible to respond to climate change by increasing energy efficiency wherever possible. Worst case scenario is improved productivity, competitiveness, and profit. If, on the other hand, increased efficiency came at the cost of infecting every person with leprosy, then global warming denialists might have more of a point.
Western society (and, it seems, the US in particular) has developed into a culture of blame. In some ways, it is understandable, as it is much easier to find someone to blame and from whom to demand retribution than to face up to the harsh realities of life, but it is not very productive. People need to understand that life is hard and often unfair, that they need to take responsibility for themselves and their kin, and that sometimes things get broken that you just can't fix - you have to cope and move on.
Autism is a very complex subject. Autism-spectrum disorders are actually much more common than one would think, and statistics seem to show they are on the rise. Part of the reason is that it was previously (and may still be) underdiagnosed due to social stigma and a poor understanding of the milder forms. Another part of it is that there seems to be a correlation between autism-spectrum disorders and other characteristics which are favorable to success and survival in an industrial society, which basically means that natural selection is currently working in favor of autism (just like natural selection works in favor of sickle-cell anemia in parts of Africa because it is linked with improved resistance to malaria). The most blatant evidence in favor of the latter interpretation is that autism-spectrum disorders seem to occur more often in children whose parents both work in IT or engineering.
Personally, I suspect that once we come to realize and accept that far more people thank we think suffer from varying degrees of autism, it will become clear that autism is in fact hereditary and that neither Thimerosal nor any other chemicals really have anything to do with it.
By the way, autism is far more survivable / treatable than was previously believed (or than many people still seem to think). Forget Rain Man; many autistic children who even thirty years ago would have been doomed to a life in an institution can actually be taught to function in normal life if you take the time to try to understand them (something medical professionals used to think was below their dignity). Elizabeth Moon (author of the Paksenarrion series) was told some twenty-odd years ago that her son was congenitally incapable of processing language, yet she taught him to speak, and to interact socially, and in the process developed a different idea of what autism is than what was prevalent at the time (in particular, she considers autism a developmental problem rather than a cognitive one). She has also written both fiction and non-fiction on the subject, which you may find worth your time to look up.