Slashdot Mirror
Court Rules Autism Not Caused By Childhood Vaccine
wiredog writes "From The Washington Post comes word that three special masters have decided that MMR vaccines do not cause autism. 'Special master George Hastings said the parents ... had "been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment." ... "the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short of demonstrating ... a link."'
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
Why not? The media industry decides on the law.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Where have you been? Courts have always not only made medical decisions, but ones in various other areas of science, too, when there is a dispute. What exactly do you think forensics are, anyway? They do the same things courts have always done - rely on expert witnesses. As soon as you come up with a better way to correctly solve disputes involving factual claims, please do let the world know.
No.. Courts make decisions based on evidence. Like in this case where there's no evidence supporting the claim that vaccines cause autism.
I have nothing compelling to say
Good, now maybe that idiot Jenny McCarthy will shut her mouth about this. There are no telling how many kids have been put at risk because they're listing to celebrities harping their pseudo-science.
Autism occurs and makes itself known about the same time as the vaccination occurs, which may explain why some people makes that connection.
But even if there was a small risk of autism related to the vaccination the risks involved by not being vaccinated are higher and the risk of an epidemic is higher if there is no vaccination performed.
So if it's possible to get a vaccination - get it. People avoiding vaccination are a breeding ground for diseases like polio and a lot of other nasty things. The only disease successfully erased is smallpox - unless it escapes a laboratory somewhere, in which case we may have a disaster on our hands.
Personally I would call parents that are fighting against vaccinations as irresponsible and a danger to society.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The plaintiffs (parents of children with autism) are required to present evidence that shows that there is a link between the vaccines and autism. The judge ruled that the evidence provided by the plaintiffs did not show such a connection, thus their complaint is dismissed. They can find more conclusive evidence and try again if they wish.
No, and they don't. They've used science as evidence in a ruling. Pay attention.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
I think for some reason a lot of people find joy in finding problems with progress. They seem to want every advancement we make as people to have some dark side effect that will lead us to our doom.
There is being vigilant not taking things at face value, then there is going overboard and jumping to conclusions just to prove progress is bad.
Just recently a bill was passed to stop a chemical from being put into children's toys, however there is no evidence that it is actually harmful in that amount. And is being replaced with new chemicals that could be just as bad, if not worse.
Is it that they want to be Hero's saving us from them selfs or do they take joy in preventing progress.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
I don't know do we?
Because our society has certainly decided that scientists can no longer decide scientific facts. If that were not the case, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
Over the last 10 years, US and UK have spent tens of millions of dollars to provide "negative proof" of something that we had already known, just to quiet down the conspiracy theorists. But instead of quieting them down, this has empowered them, by giving them and their claims legitimacy. Now, we're faced with a situation where childhood vaccination has taken a nosedive, and we're seeing old goodies like measles re-emerge into small (for now) epidemics. And as herd immunity is eroded further, we will see additional diseases make an impressive comeback.
So now that we took the right to make educated judgments about medical and scientific matters, away from doctors and scientists, we've also demonstrated that as a society we're incapable of making rational decisions... which isn't surprising. The only option left seems to be the courts, where reasonably educated judges may or may not rule according to the best data available. Well... at least there's a chance.
And for those who will scream at me about mercury in vaccines, why don't you compare a single or rare exposure to a tiny amount of mercury... to how much mercury you must feed to your children via fish... and corn syrup.
I tend to lean to the left side of the political spectrum, but two threads of liberal thought piss me off more than just about anything: anti nuke environmentalists and autism/vaccine linkers. Both group are as bad as any anti science fundamentalist, but in a way worse: they think that science and reason backs them up, when really it doesn't. They're just using it as a rationalization for their existing superstitions, mainly of the "don't mess with mother nature" variety.
Who else should have the final say in a damage claim? Parents accuse the producer of the vaccine to have done damage to their children by causing their autism with the vaccine. The producer claims to be innocent. That's definitely something for a court to decide.
But we didn't know the courts were going to listen to reason rather than urban legends and charlatans.
Honestly, it's different in every person. Those who may be built better might not have any issues with the vaccine. Those with weaker immune systems may have issues manifested later in life.
It's honestly really stupid of us to say "It does" or "It doesn't" at this point. We don't know enough about how the human body works on a per case basis. All we can do is make generalizations.
It's like saying AIDS will kill you.. For the majority of us, yes, it will. For the one guy in china that was found to be completely immune to the virus, no, it won't.
No, the lack of thoes vacines is a leading indicator for...
Children killed or brain damaged by their idiot parents.
Yeah, it's funny that once they got rid of the supposedly "bad" stuff in vaccinations (thimerosol), not only did autism rates not go down... they kept getting [i]higher[/i].
Obviously, something in our environment is making autism rates climb. But it doesn't look like it's the thimerosol. Even if it is from mercury (which I don't know of any data showing that it is), it seems to be mercury from some other source, not from thimerosol.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
And when smallpox kills a few million 20 years after that, who do I get to sue?
The people who mandated them will say "sorry we didn't know," but the parents should be able to say to them "fuck you, you will pay horrifically for what you did to our kids, you miserable social engineers."
And when the kids catch these horrible diseases what then?
The parents will say, "Sorry we didn't know, we thought we knew best." Do the kids then get to say to the parents: "fuck you, you will pay horrifically for what you did us" ?
Just curious.
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
I'm not seeing this the same way you are. What happened here is the court judged the evidence for vaccines causing autism as insufficient. In same way the court decided that 'intelligent design' was not sufficiently scientific to be taught in science classes, I suppose. The door is still open for the vaccine advocates to prove their case... but they have to do the research.
The one disappointing thing here is that the court blames physicians for the public misconception. In reality, the blame lies more with the mass media, who turned the original claims into a massive health scare.
The vast majority of physicians correctly investigated the claims and determined that the evidence did not stand up to scrutiny. But the media took that and turned it into their beloved "lone rebel" story, with a parents' champion fighting to get the truth out while the sinister establishment tried to suppress it. Result? Massive decrease in vaccine uptake, threatening public health and risking a deadly epidemic. All because "your children are at risk" sells more papers than "oops, we goofed up, turns out vaccines are safe after all".
"This is why I hesitate to let "experts" force major social projects on us. "
So instead of "experts" you want people with no real education in the subject, no real facts, and a lot of fear and guess work to decide?
We know that vaccines don't cause autism. Just about every kid has been vaccinated and they don't all have it.
Vaccines could contribute to it but so could a lot of things. I blame DVDs myself. The huge increase in autism started when DVDs started to replace video tapes.
So we should also ban DVDs.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If the government required vaccine makers to shoulder the burden of liability claims, absolutely no drug company would ever bother to manufacture them. They take a very long time to develop, sell for a relatively low price, are generally given to jury-friendly and photogenic children, and are difficult to manufacture.
The powers that be have decided that the public health benefit of vaccines existing far outweighs the risk of the govt. having to pay out liability claims.
SirWired
There was no scientific evidence that Silcone Breast implants caused illness either, but that didn't stop them from driving Dow Corning into bankruptcy with claims that they did. People do have a right to their beliefs, even if they are paranoid delusions, they have a right to refuse to get their kids immunized. What they don't have is a right to is compensation for harm that occurred after another event with no evidence that the other event actually caused the harm. In this case, the original claim was that the mercury (Thimerisol?) caused autism; it was quickly removed from vaccines, and then the claim was changed to the vaccination itself caused autism. When that couldn't be proved, then the claim was changed to several different vaccines taken closely together cause autism. (This last claim isn't quite as ridiculous as the other claims, since vaccine safety is tested a single vaccine at a time, not in combinations.) Yeah, I'm sorry about your kids' medical problems, but, like silicone implants, there is no statistical evidence that the medical problems occur any more frequently in kids that have had the vaccinations than kids that have not. Post Hoc, ergo propter hoc is still a logical fallacy.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Amish people are far less likely to be involved in automobile accidents than the general population. Amish do not vaccinate, therefore vaccinations cause automobile accidents..
Do I need to spell out the sloppy thinking ?
This is why I hesitate to let "experts" force major social projects on us.
But you do this every day. The specifications for fuel containers, electricity transmission, microwave usage, drugs, food, drink as all brought about from open public discussion around a set of targeted studies. There are thousands of risks you take every day based on the statements of experts that set the margin for error as low as society wants, including the squabbling over the last few percentage points.
If there's a link between vaccines and autism 20 years from now, then *society itself* will have learned something. You may be horrified, but this occurs every day, and plenty of children & adults "pay" for these mistakes. Lead paint, drugs come and go, gaseous output from industry, heavy metals in manufacturing, etc. Lots of exposure to the "safe" chemicals we make and use every day will undoubtedly have new effects learned about them in the future, and some will be negative.
You are not living in the future, nor is society omnipotent. You can do your best to push the discoveries along as fast as possible, but you're going to have to accept your place in history, as we all. For example: you skipped the century of common transmission of animal-borne diseases in congested cities, but are now living in the century of plastic, fossil fuels and biological experimentation. There may never be a time when your actions don't involve some calculated risk, where you didn't do the calculations yourself.
Right now, there is no observable link between vaccines and autism, and there may never be. Fund more studies if you want, but don't skip the vaccines, you're just butting heads with society in general.
A study of 10,000 non-Amish people found that none of those people had seizures after the vaccine. To me that is all the evidence I need right there.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
And the local public school district is still letting her attend?
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
a court once determined the earth was at the center of the solar system as well..
evidence about autism is not as iron clad but a court cant rule on what causes autism, that's for scientist to worry about.
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
Presently there is absolutely no medical evidence to support this. Lots of kids get these vaccines and are OK. The percentage of kids who gets these vaccines and develop autism is the same percentage of kids who get autism just because it happens.
The only evidence that shows these vaccines may cause autism are the babbling chatter of actors/actresses like Jenny McCarthy, who frequently loves to go on insane rants/shout vests against doctors/scientists - telling them they are wrong and she is right.
Autism is horrible, so is your kid dying of meals, mumps, chicken pox, etc. Let's not spread hype/garbage.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
My neighbor believed this, her husband was dumbfounded, but he and the doctor couldn't convince her otherwise. I had never even heard of it before I had talked to her husband. Kind of sad.
Well neither the husband nor the doctor played much of a role in the child's prenatal development, did they? Put yourself in Mom's position - she has to endure the feelings of guilt and inadequacy, not the sperm donor. As such she will naturally grasp any other explanation for the disorder, be it vaccines, overhead power lines, fluoride in the water, bug spray on her food, etc.
It's the same reason we have these absurdly nebulous diagnoses such as Autism in the first place. We've even got "mild autism" if you can't handle the full euphemism. Maybe it was a meaningful diagnosis when it had a much narrower definition, but now it's used as an umbrella for everything from practically braindead to a little slow to even just "doesn't talk much". It's become like ADD or the "learning disability" they'd have if they were a little older.
I have empathy for these families, but I don't think we're doing them any favors by constantly seeking different labels for everything, or using pseudoscience and finger-pointing to find a scapegoat for poor health, genetics, or luck.
Thimerosal does not need to be in modern vaccines - single dose sterile packaging SHOULD be able to render it unnecessary. This is a good thing, while injecting trace amounts may not be statistically linkable to autism if you can avoid any unnecessary heavy metal exposure then you should. Same with radiation, X-rays or pesticides, each will eat away at your ability to live to 90.
We currently have the technology and economics to avoid thimerosals use, perhaps some poorer countries do not. In the West problems only arise when health staff get sloppy and reuse packs or are unable to notice a seal broken during shipment. Blaming such incidents on the FDA not allowing mercury use is incorrect - its plane old management failure, its harder to fix and most of know it too well.
Also in the context of this court case, the court did not specifically conclude MMR does not cause autism. The three masters decided that the plaintiffs could not meet a minimum burden of proof that a link existed. The plaintiffs did not have to prove that MMR caused autism; all they had to prove was that there is a plausible link. They failed to do that.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
From what I can tell, the media defines pretty much everything.
Except that we can correlate the following:
1. the vast majority of slashdotters don't have children,
2. the dangers of lead are so great that pediatricians advise expectant mothers against eating most types of high-lead fish (such as swordfish,kingfish,non-farmed tuna even) where the lead ppm/ppb is far lower than that in the thimersol
3. which has most assuredly still not worked its way out of the vaccine supply system entirely. The thing is, fair disclosure should be said. The public spazzes out and manufactures have to pull toys off of shelves for lead levels (that in some cases) was lower than what was in vaccines
4. Vaccines are often given to children weighing under 15 lbs. If we prorate exposure to the adult body, would you be willing to tolerate a known teratogenic chemical dosing scaled for the it-beer gut? No consumer in their right mind would.
5. Correlation while not causation is enough to have warning labels on tobacco products, saws (caution blade is sharp) lawn mowers (do not reach under blade while motor is spinning).
Assume people are inherently incompetent -- that's they only way any company can reliably attempt to do business (what gives with the 3 inch pull strings on kids pullalongs?!?!?)
There's just too much to actually follow up fairly in a comment
Worrying about the mercury in Thimerosal is like complaining about the poisonous gas - chlorine - in table salt.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
You idiots rated this guy insightful? He's just a troll. Autism is not about sugar. My son has autism, (but not ADHD) and it has nothing to do with sugar. Spend sometime with these kids and watch them struggle through life, before you spout your idiotic nonsense.
Damn, I wish I had some moderation points today..
Have you ever seen an autistic kid? They might be a bit hyperactive, but for the most part, they could completely care less about whether they are friends with other kids or not. IT was explained to me thus: if a deaf kid or a blind kid took the autism communications diagnostic tests, they'd still pass because they do something to compensate for their communications shortcomings. The autistic kid doesn't even care.
This is my sig.
Don't forget the study showing that older parents are more likely to produce offspring with autism. Oh, and fertility treatments seem to be linked as well.
So increased detection, better understanding of the disease, people having children later in life, and increased use of fertility treatments would all seem to have some effect.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
why is it everyone thinks this is an 'in for a penny in for a pound' issue?
Small pox vaccine for 5 yo = good idea...
Chicken pox vaccine for a 5 yo = wtf?
whooping cough vaccine for infants = good idea
barely tested hpv vaccine for 9yo girls = wtf?
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
You're causing a serious problem in the community entirely because you're some combination of selfish and stupid. Of course you can get away with not vaccinating for some contagious disease, because you're a free rider on everyone else doing it.
There's some small risk in vaccination (very small, but it exists). You want eveyone else's kids to take the risk so that your kid doesn't have to. That's evil. Plain, simple, selfish, evil. Stop hurting other family's children to protect your own - you benefit from society in so many ways, you need to participate in society where it really matters.
This isn't "do your part, recycle" or some other BS, this is your very real duty to protect all children in society by taking a very slight risk with your own.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I have a friend that won the lottery right after getting vaccinated. Now I get vaccinated for diseases that don't even affect my gender.
The family of 5 down the street has no autistic people. The family down the street doesn't eat dairy. To me that is all the evidence I need right there.
Seriously, why do people with math and logic skills this bad read slashdot? Did they get lost on the way to a gossip site?
Wait, what is the problem? Either the kids actually have Autism and doctors should have diagnosed them, or parents of disruptive kids without Autism need get their kids to behave. Maybe you worded it wrongly, but it sounds like you are saying the problem is that schools are refusing to provide services to kids who don't need those services. That's not a problem. If the kid isn't Autistic, he shouldn't be treated as if he is. If a kid isn't Autistic and is being disruptive, he should be kicked out and the parents should be told to deal with that, not shop around for a doctor willing to misdiagnose just so the parents can claim that their non-Autistic kid isn't really a bad person.
Or are your really suggesting that the problem is doctors need to do a better job of detecting earlier so that autistic kids can get the services they need? I'm really not sure. Please clarify.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Huh? Since when is it evil to care about your family over someone whom you don't know? Seriously, I could give a damn about a family I don't know. I want MY friends and family to survive.
I can also argue that you're being selfish; forcing one person to get a vaccine, for which you acknowledge a risk, for their kid so YOURS isn't in risk. THAT is selfish; expecting someone else to risk their kid for yours.
Why is it so hard to understand that someone could have both received an MMR vaccine and been diagnosed with autism without there being any relation between the two? Most people with autism have had an MMR vaccine, just as most people without autism have had an MMR vaccine.
Where is the supposed plausible evidence?
Seriously, I could give a damn about a family I don't know. I want MY friends and family to survive.
Good point! Give me all your money. Now. I don't give a damn about your family that I don't know. I want MY friends and family to have money.
I can also argue that you're being selfish; forcing one person to get a vaccine, for which you acknowledge a risk, for their kid so YOURS isn't in risk.
Call me selfish, then. I'm also collecting tax money from you to fund my kids' schools. I'm a right bastard, aren't I?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Herd immunity, if you get enough people vaccinated, even those few without protection, are protected and you can basically force a disease into non-existence, if on the other side you don't get enough people vaccinated herd immunity no longer works and people will die as a result of that.
Its also questionable if freedom should allow you to let your child suffer and possibly die if a cure exists.
I'm no expert, but I don't see how the mothers antibodies could be protecting the child after delivery[...]
From the Merck Manual Home Edition:
Obviously, this is anything but a comprehensive review of the relevant medical literature. I personally wonder how long actual antibodies last (as opposed to the immunity of which they are one facet). Hopefully, this has piqued your interest enough that you'll look deeper yourself.
But I could be wrong, maybe antibodies get through as well, it just doesn't seem likely.
How "likely" does it seem that you would have five classes of antibodies? I'm not going to beat you over the head about being wrong (which would make me, what, a bio-nazi?), but I will call you out for relying on supposition and gut feeling instead of doing even the most basic checking (not even "research") before spouting off.
If we collectively make fun of Ted Stevens for speaking "authoritatively" about things he does not understand in the least (series of tubes!), I would suggest that we are perfectly within our rights to call out each other for spouting equally ill-informed drivel about topics on which we have not bothered to read.
And if evidence does appear, the ruling can be overturned. It's a pretty straightforward system.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That's one possibility (and it might be a very good one; I'm not disputing that). But, there is another possibility, which is that the rate of incidence of autism has stayed the same, but that our ability to diagnose it has increased. How many people that we call "autistic" today would have just been called "weird" or "slow" 50 years ago?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Troll Much?
Vaccinations are mandatory because freedom loving hippy trippers that don't consider the costs to other people's children decide not to get their brats vaccinated. And those brats infect other hippytripper brats, and those.... Wait. Could your stupidity actually be coming back on your children?
The reason people get "freaked out" when YOU tell them that YOU don't vaccinate YOUR kids is not because they are scared for their own kids. It's because of YOUR failure to protect your children from:
1. Measles - causes facial scarring, corneal scarring, and blindness
2. Mumps - can cause infertility on older victims
3. Polio - cripples children. Completely. Paralysis and often Death for those that contract it
4. Smallpox - Facial scarring, blindness, limb deformities, paralysis.
You see, they are actually recoiling in horror at what a despicable, inhuman, horrible parent you are. Children face risks. Lots of them. Before adequate medical care, clean water, and all the other modern conveniences (starting about the 1900s), lots of children died before their 5th birthday. And you have just increased their risks from our wonderful 2009 statistics back to the 1909 statistics. Not vaccinating your child opens them up to all of this, Vaccinating opens them up to a tiny risk. Easy FREAKING choice.
My two cents: You should be locked up for child endangerment if you don't vaccinate.
~Sticky
Yes, I've seen Serenity. In fact I own it, its a good movie.
They thought they had a cure for social strife, which easily kills more people that contagious diseases do..
I've also seen "The Last Man on Earth" and "The Stand". If we can go to fiction land the pendulum swings both ways.
In the real world something like smallpox has killed more people in a day than all the vaccines administered in the last 100 years combined.
Even if the odds of the vaccination killing you are 1:10,000,000 and the odds of the disease killing you are 1:1,000,000 you common sense dictates you should take the vaccination.
I can see what you mean, but it's entirely possible for a child to be disruptive and the issue not be autism. It could be sheer naughtiness (which may be a disorder in its own right, but not autism), it could be secondary to something like chronic pain (undiagnosed constipation is a common one), it could even be some sort of home problem or abuse. None of those things are autistic spectrum, and all of them take time to tease out. Until a child reaches an age at which they acquire complex social interactions (or should), characteristic behaviour is difficult to spot.
Think about it this way: if someone says 'my computer keeps crashing' I would assume (as a Slashdot member) you would know how to go about diagnosing that - you would need to see the complex behaviour of interacting with the operating system in order to work it out. If it was a rack in a server farm and you just had a blinking LED telling you it's not working, that wouldn't be enough.
In the meantime schools can be unsympathetic because they just see a naughty child. The nub of the issue is that actually we everyone, including schools, should be sympathetic to any child with behavioural problems, because whatever the issue, the solution is for parents and other responsible adults to provide a supportive environment, not to chuck the child out.
I say to you, sir, that this here is America and we'll not have any of your personal responsibility nonsense.
So, why are you even telling people about your "diagnosis", if you're not trying to be a "special little snowflake" and brag about your internet fad disease? Nobody cares.
Well, that depend on what is his "shut in" process. An austistic one, like mine, would be that it suddenly becomes hard to perceive other people, that he has difficulties to isolate human voices from background noise, and such socialization related problems.
Nice try, but that would imply that somehow parents bear some form of responsibility, which is unthinkable.
Clearly, the evil corporation did it, because someone (else) has to be blamed, right?
Before I saw Rain Man I had never heard of Autism
Me neither. But before I saw Rain Man I had a kid in my elementary school classes who was never really "with us" emotionally, doing terribly in classes, etc... and another couple kids who just seemed a little distant and odd. And then one day I learned what the word "autism" meant, and said "oooh, yeah, I've seen that."
Multiply that experience by 300 million Americans, and you've got yourself an "autism epidemic".
"Be thankful that people are fighting for right to choose what you do with your children."
Not in this case, not getting a child vaccinated hurts everyone. Non vaccinated children may cause mutations in a virus rendering the vaccines useless. This can not happen in a vaccinated child.
Communities getting sick is bad for economics, overall health.
"That said, the fact that science cannot find a cause for the incredibly rapid increase of autism in industrialized nations isn't helping matters."
That's incorrect. It is the broadening of the term. In fact, the 'increase' follows the broadening of the term exactly. In fact, when the vaccines where changed in 1998 it had NO impact on the 'autism' rate; which was expected.
"People are looking for a common link and keep coming to a solution that is common to these nations and immunization stands out."
It's no more a common link then drinking water is a common link. It was rational to think this 30+ years ago, not any more.
"It may not be true, but it isn't that irrational."
Based on all the evidence, and there is mountains of it, it is irrational to keep thinking vaccines are the cause.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Chicken Pox cause death, brain damage, scars, and when your older they come back in the form of shingles. Shingles can be so painful that people have been know to kill themselves.
And the only reason not to give multiple vaccines in one shot is because you are a mean SoB that likes to see kids get poked with needles.
Please get a clue.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If my kid ends up blind because you didn't vaccinate your kid on horseshit pseudo-scientific grounds, do you think I'll give a shit about the active/passive distinction in moral philosophy?
FYI, if you want to look at the ethics of the situation, you also need to read up on 'collective action problems'.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Obviously, something in our environment is making autism rates climb. But it doesn't look like it's the thimerosol. Even if it is from mercury (which I don't know of any data showing that it is), it seems to be mercury from some other source, not from thimerosol.
Not to mention, worrying about the mercury in your thimerosol causing autism is like worrying about being poisoned by the chlorine in your table salt, or the flammability of the hydrogen in your tap water. Component elements of compounds undergo a chemical reaction when they combine, and don't retain their original properties.
Does anyone remember an article that was posted here several years ago about higher autism rates in areas with a lot of high-tech companies? It's been a while, but I seem to remember that the rates were higher among children of two parents with autistic tendencies themselves, suggesting that the possibility of a genetic link exists.