Sierra Faith

Asked differently, do Thimerosal and, more generally, mercury cause autism?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says Yes, but did he attempt to steal a base in his efforts to evangelize pharmaceutical phobia?

Derek Lowe thinks so (and both Salon and Rolling Stone are rolling out the corrections).

Lowe cites many other blogs writing on the subject, a few of which I have perused (Blissful Knowledge asks the pharmaphobia question too).

It would be an understatement to say there is passion on this subject.

Orac minces few words:

Finally, there was one useful link in Dr. Gordon’s post to demonstrate yet again RFK Jr.’s disingenuousness, a fawning Scarborough Country interview. Check out this quote:

Thimerosal is a preservative that was put in vaccines back in the 1930s. Almost immediately after it was put in, autism cases began to appear. Autism had never been known before. It was unknown to science. Then the vaccines were increased in 1989 by the CDC and by a couple of other government agencies.

I’ve already dealt with this utterly idiotic “correlation does not necessarily indicate causation” canard before, as well as the myth that autism didn’t exist before thimerosal-containing vaccines were introduced in the 1930’s. Shall I repeat myself? Yes I shall:

No, the reason the disease was “unknown” until 1943 was because it was not described as a specific condition by Dr. Leo Kanner until 1943, after which Dr. Hans Asperger described a similar condition that now bears his name in 1944. Before that, although Dr. Eugen Bleuler had coined the term “autism” in 1911, no specific diagnostic criteria existed for the disease. Even for decades after 1943 autism was not infrequently confused with mental retardation or schizophrenia, and over the last two decades the diagnostic criteria for autism and autism spectum disorders have been widened.

To which I now shall add: It goes back way further than that. There are published accounts of behavior that resembles autism in the 18th century. In the 18th and 19th century, there were many accounts of idiot savants, many of whom were likely autistic or had Asperger’s. There are even some who speculate that Sir Isaac Newton may have had Asperger’s, although I’m not sure I entirely buy their argument. Does RFK Jr. really mean to argue that autism and ASDs just popped up almost overnight a few years after mercury was introduced into vaccines? These diseases most definitely did not. They’ve probably been around as long as humans have been around; it’s just that before the mid 20th century sufferers of these diseases were relegated to insane asylums, lumped together with the mentally retarded and schizophrenics, used as entertainment in freak shows, or simply labeled as “odd” or even “mad.” RFK Jr. only shoots himself in the foot and makes himself look a fool by constantly repeating such an easily debunked canard.

Orac also writes on chelation therapy:

In this regard, there is no evidence whatsoever that [chelation therapy] does any good or improves the symptoms of autism. However, there are parents out there who are utterly convinced that it helped their child enormously. Such cases are hard to deal with for the simple reason that no matter how much you point out that it is mechanistically implausible for chelation therapy should help autism or ASDs and that there is no evidence that it does anything good whatsoever for these neurodevelopmental disorders, they tend to remain utterly convinced that it helped their children. And, because the nature of medicine and science is such that impossible ever to prove a negative, you can never rule out 100% that chelation may have helped in this one case, chelation therapy lives on, and the quacks continue to profit off of preying upon the hopes of desperate parents who want to do something to help their children.

I agree that without scientific data and peer review, it is healthy to remain skeptical.

But skepticism is not the same as opposition to exploration, i.e. do fish oils help (and does trying hurt your child)?

One thing I do know, Republican Representative Dan Burton and RFK, Jr. are not ideological bedfellows.

But neither are they scientists.

Much, much more homework to do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 1:37 AM and is filed under Autism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.