California Study Finds No Link Between Vaccines, Autism
By Brandon KeimJanuary 08, 2008 |
The mercury-containing vaccine additive thimerosal is not a primary cause of autism, says a study published yesterday in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
High doses of thimerosal were used throughout the 1990’s in infant vaccines before being largely removed from U.S. supplies in 1999. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin, and some people have blamed it for the dramatic, tragic rise of autism in the United States.
Yesterday’s study, authored by California Department of Public Health researchers Robert Schechter and Judith Grether, used California Department of Developmental Services data to track rates of autism diagnoses since thimerosal’s removal. If thimerosal was responsible for the autism epidemic, there would ostensibly have been a drop in diagnoses in children born after the 1999 removal — but that’s not what they saw. The numbers continued to rise.