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I was skimming the new book, The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic by Dan Olmsted & Bill Blaxill. Their premise is that increased exposure to mercury in children is responsible for the dramatic upsurge in autism rates. They don't believe there is a genetic component, other than a susceptibility to mercury-induced teratological changes.
The authors write that more people than ever are exposed through mercury-containing pharmaceuticals, vaccines, agricultural runoff into our water, air pollution in areas that have coal-based industries or in areas where wind currents carry these pollutants. According to them, big pharma & agri have been blocking research on and dissemination of this information.
In addition, the children of parents whose occupations expose them to mercury have greater rates of having autistic children.
What do you think about this?
I'd like to know if those of you with children on the autism spectrum have observed changes in their behavior after exposure to mercury.
Last edited by Pivot Point; 09-23-2010 at 03:28 PM..
Reason: sp
Also, the symptoms of mercury poisoning and autism are NOT similar
Autism Symptoms and Mercury Poisoning: The Myth of Thimerosol and Vaccines as a Cause of Autism (http://www.suite101.com/content/autism-symptoms-and-mercury-poisoning-a159047 - broken link)
Quote:
The symptoms of mercury poisoning and autism do not match. Symptoms of mercury poisoning include narrowing in the field of vision, severe psychosis and heads that are smaller than normal. Children who are afflicted with autism do not have narrower fields of vision nor are they psychotic. In fact most children with autism actually have heads that are larger than normal.
In a study published in the March 3rd, 2003 edition of Pediatrics (the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) Karin B. Nelson and Margaret L. Bauman, both doctors, ultimately pointed out that the “overall the clinical picture of mercurism—from any known form, dose, duration, or age of exposure—does not mimic that of autism.”
I was skimming the new book, The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic by Dan Olmsted & Bill Blaxill. Their premise is that increased exposure to mercury in children is responsible for the dramatic upsurge in autism rates. They don't believe there is a genetic component, other than a susceptibility to mercury induced teratological changes.
The authors write that more people than ever are exposed through mercury-containing pharmaceuticals, vaccines, agricultural runoff into our water, air pollution in areas that have coal-based industries or in areas where wind currents carry these pollutants. According to them, big pharma & agri have been blocking research on and dissemination of this information.
In addition, the children of parents whose occupations expose them to mercury have greater rates of having autistic children.
What do you think about this?
I'd like to know if those of you with children on the autism spectrum have observed changes in their behavior after exposure to mercury.
The mercury / autism link has been compltely debunked, the English doctor who started the whole mess has been discredited, and Olmstead is a reporter, not a scientist. Mercury in vaccines and tooth fillings does not harm people.
The research has been done, and the association between thimerosal disproved. There are other threads on this issue.
Also, the symptoms of mercury poisoning and autism are NOT similar
Autism Symptoms and Mercury Poisoning: The Myth of Thimerosol and Vaccines as a Cause of Autism (http://www.suite101.com/content/autism-symptoms-and-mercury-poisoning-a159047 - broken link)
look uo "symptons of mercury poisoning" and compare to "symptons of autism" they are identical. You can believe what you want. Why was mercury removed as a preservative in most childhood vaccines in 2001 if it was not Extremely dangerous.
The mercury / autism link has been compltely debunked, the English doctor who started the whole mess has been discredited, and Olmstead is a reporter, not a scientist. Mercury in vaccines and tooth fillings does not harm people.
The research has been done, and the association between thimerosal disproved. There are other threads on this issue.
Interesting that Andrew Wakefields paper made and stayed in the Lancet for more than ten years before it was retracted. Also interesting that the Lancet prints papers only after they've been reviewed over and over again by many peers.Interesting that mercury has been removed from most childhood vaccines.Andrew Wakefields conclusions are still widely supported by many scientists, doctors and vaccine researchers worldwide.
look uo "symptons of mercury poisoning" and compare to "symptons of autism" they are identical. You can believe what you want. Why was mercury removed as a preservative in most childhood vaccines in 2001 if it was not Extremely dangerous.
No the symptoms are not the same. Read the article I posted. Thimerosol was removed because of pressure from the anti-vax crowd. It was easier to remove it than to fight with them.
By the Environmental Protection Agency
Impairment of the peripheral vision
Disturbances in sensations ("pins and needles" feelings, numbness) usually in the hands feet and sometimes around the mouth
Lack of coordination of movements, such as writing
Impairment of speech, hearing, walking;
Muscle weakness
Skin rashes
Mood swing
Memory loss
Mental disturbance
What Are the Symptoms of Autism?
Symptoms of autism typically appear before a child is 3 years old and last throughout life. Children with autism can display a wide range of symptoms, which can vary in severity from mild to disabling. General symptoms that may be present to some degree in a child with autism include:
Difficulty with verbal communication, including problems using and understanding language.
Inability to participate in a conversation, even when the child has the ability to speak.
Difficulty with non-verbal communication, such as gestures and facial expressions.
Difficulty with social interaction, including relating to people and to his or her surroundings.
Inability to make friends and preferring to play alone.
Unusual ways of playing with toys and other objects, such as only lining them up a certain way.
Lack of imagination.
Difficulty adjusting to changes in routine or familiar surroundings, or an unreasonable insistence on following routines in detail.
Repetitive body movements, or patterns of behavior, such as hand flapping, spinning, and head banging.
Preoccupation with unusual objects or parts of objects.
Quote:
What Are the Warning Signs That a Child may Have Autism?
Babies develop at their own pace, some more quickly than others. However, you should consider an evaluation for autism if any of the following apply:
Your child does not babble or coo by 12 months of age.
Your child does not gesture, such as point or wave, by 12 months of age.
Your child does not say single words by 16 months.
Your child does not say two-word phrases on his or her own (rather than just repeating what someone else says) by 24 months.
Your child has lost any language or social skills (at any age).
A few of the symptoms *may* overlap because children with autism can have sensory processing disorders and adhd as well. Children with autism can have co-occurring symptoms of other disorders, but that does NOT mean that they have mercury poisoning.
Interesting that Andrew Wakefields paper made and stayed in the Lancet for more than ten years before it was retracted. Also interesting that the Lancet prints papers only after they've been reviewed over and over again by many peers.Interesting that mercury has been removed from most childhood vaccines.Andrew Wakefields conclusions are still widely supported by many scientists, doctors and vaccine researchers worldwide.
Of course, even more interesting is the fact that the original article was about the MMR vaccine and not really about thimerosol.
Dr. Wakefield’s paper reported on his examinations of 12 children with chronic intestinal disorders who had a history of normal development followed by severe mental regressions. He speculated that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine may have caused some sort of chronic intestinal measles infection that in turn damaged the children’s brains. He suggested that the combined vaccine should be split into three separate shots and given over a longer period of time.
But an investigation by a British journalist found financial and scientific conflicts that Dr. Wakefield did not reveal in his paper. For instance, part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research were paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages. Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented in 1997 a measles vaccine that would succeed if the combined vaccine were withdrawn or discredited.
Quote:
In the United States, anti-vaccine groups have advanced other theories since then to explain why they think vaccines cause autism. For years, they blamed thimerosal, a vaccine preservative containing mercury. Because of concerns over the preservative, vaccine makers in 2001 largely eliminated thimerosal from routinely administered childhood vaccines.
But this change has had no apparent impact on childhood autism rates. Anti-vaccine groups now suggest that a significant number of children have a cellular disorder whose effects are set off by vaccinations.
Interesting that Andrew Wakefields paper made and stayed in the Lancet for more than ten years before it was retracted. Also interesting that the Lancet prints papers only after they've been reviewed over and over again by many peers.Interesting that mercury has been removed from most childhood vaccines.Andrew Wakefields conclusions are still widely supported by many scientists, doctors and vaccine researchers worldwide.
Before you start worshiping at the altar of peer review, read this quote from the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, in The Medical Journal of Australia:
[I]First, how can two (reasonably) well-regarded organisations peer review the same work...and yet come to such radically opposite conclusions about its validity, as did the Royal Society and The Lancet? All six Royal Society reviewers pronounced the research "flawed", while five out of six of The Lancet's reviewers judged that Ewen and Pusztai's work should be published. Peer review as a reliable technique for assessing the validity of scientific data is surely discredited.
The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability -- not the validity -- of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong. A recent editorial in Nature was right to conclude that an over-reliance on peer-reviewed publication "has disadvantages that should be countered by adequate provision of time and resources for independent assessment and, in the midst of controversies, publicly funded agencies providing comprehensive, reliable and prompt complementary information".[/i]
Yeah I find it hard to believe, simply based on the older generations' stories about playing with mercury and all the other fun and exciting uses for mercury 'back in the day' I find it very hard to believe there's more exposure to mercury today than there was 50 years ago.
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