Mercury and autism

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Mercury and autismWHO CARES as long as Big HARMA makes his MONEY?This link is an excellent article on mercury and autism and the linkhttp://home.cogeco.ca/~allan/fallacies.html

The important part of which is hereLow level mercury from amalgam fillings or from a preservative in vaccines is not harmfulDespite many claims to the contrary, amalgam fillings and the preservative thimerosal are officially considered to be safe. If this should turn out to be untrue, the harm from low level mercury (in the worst case scenario) could exceed that from tobacco.Mercury is a potent neuropoison but like all poisons, there is a threshold amount below which it is not harmful. Some poisons are even beneficial at very low levels. Not so mercury. While mercury has been used medicinally to kill what ails you, no claim has ever been made for a positive biological effect from mercury at any level. Nevertheless, there is a lot of evidence that the average human is not harmed by the small amount of mercury absorbed from amalgam fillings or from the vaccine preservative called thimerosal.Of course, sensitivity to a poison like mercury is going to vary from person. There has been little research on what fraction of the human race is especially sensitive to mercury and at what level of mercury exposure the most sensitive among us are affected.The possibility of a heightened sensitivity to mercury is not even acknowledged by many researchers. Given that many of us have problems with normal foods (as in diabetes, lactose intolerance and celiac disease), what should we expect from a poison? It would be remarkable if mercury sensitivity did not exist.There are indications that as many as 10% of us are sufficiently sensitive to mercury to be affected by the mercury absorbed from amalgam fillings. This is not easy to prove and any attempt at proof is going to run into resistance from institutions with very deep pockets. The result is that even if the safety of amalgam is a fallacy, it is one that will be with us for a while.The situation with thimerosal is complex. Vaccinations save lives. If a few babies get autism, that is better than many babies dying. On the other hand if vaccinations were conceded to have an occasional side effect like autism, then some parents would refuse the vaccinations, the profits of vaccine makers would decline and more babies would die. It is in the financial interest of vaccine manufacturers to disprove the connection with autism. Also, health officials with the greater good in mind may also want to disprove the autism connection. This dual pressure can lead to scientific distortion. There was an example of this in early 2008.A paper was published in the journal Pediatrics on the time it takes for mercury, from the preservative thimerosal, to clear the blood stream. The study’s author, Pichichero, was interviewed by a science writer and he reported that the mercury was pumped out of a baby’s body too fast for it to be a cause of autism. Turning to the Pediatrics paper, “Mercury Levels in Newborns and Infants After Receipt of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines,†the language is more restrained than in the public announcement and the autism connection is a stretch at best.The study does a good job of measuring the half life of mercury in the bloodstream of an average baby. But autistic babies are not average. Only a few babies in a thousand get autism. In order to say something about a possible autism connection, the study would have to look at mercury sensitive babies. Most, if not all, such babies were eliminated from this trial in the following ways:“Children with contraindications to routine vaccinations were excluded from participation.†They don’t spell out what constitutes a contraindication but I can imagine that a family history of bad reactions to vaccinations might do it.“For reduction of bias, a few outlier data points …. were excluded.†This is standard practice. Very unusual results could be machine or clerical error and should not be allowed to affect the average result. Nevertheless, if there were an interest in rare reactions (as a sign of mercury sensitivity) these outliers would be of special interest and would be double checked.The study began with 216 babies. 88 were dropped from the study because it was not possible to obtain a full set of blood samples. That’s a lot of dropouts. I can’t help but wonder if in a few cases the parents refused to allow blood to be taken because the baby was having a bad reaction to the vaccine.If thimerosal is causing autism, it is probably happening in cases of mercury sensitivity coupled with a genetic susceptibility to autism. This study does a good job of determining the half-life of mercury (from thimerosal) in the blood of an average baby but has nothing to say about mercury sensitive babies, and hence nothing of any substance to say, one way or the other, about thimerosal as a cause of autism.I note that worthy PICHICHERO gets a hammering for his POOR SCIENCE.How does this man (PICHICHERO) turn out papers every two weeks or less and can they be properly researched and thought out even if he is a GENIUS.No criticism of the half life which actually gets a slap on the back from this author.In fact it is a very dangerous LIE.We just happen to know that MERCURY lodges in us for EVER. Apart from the bit that we luckily get rid of that is.PICHICHERO for all his GENIUS just fails to note that if you test blood, stools or urine you cant get a very good value for NEAR LETHAL amounts of MERCURY in the brain or HEART muscle. Was he really extracting the URINE though?But for whatever vast or small sums he gets for churning out BAD SCIENCE; he is as they say LAUGHING all the way to the bank.Pity about a MILLION or more loaded or overloaded with MERCURY and get permanent disease conditions.WHO CARES as long as Big HARMA makes his MONEY?

(Actually WHO also doesn't CARE)MERCURY and AUTISM