• Meets: 2nd Saturday of each month
• More Info: (info in item #1 for meeting topics and details) CLICK HERE TO FIND A MEETING

Autism is Preventable and Treatable

In conjunction with the Defeat Autism Now! Conference in Washington DC this April, advocacy groups are joining together to launch a day of lobbying for our children on Capitol Hill and in their states. The "Mercury Generation" website is under construction and will be available soon.

WHY?    Because we are a "potent national force" as described in a New York Times article, and we want our representatives to make our children a priority. 

WHERE?   Upper Senate Park, Washington, DC

WHEN?   Thursday, April 6, 2006 @  9:00 am –  March (line up) feet moving at 9:15,  10:00 Rally/Press Conference  – Times may vary a little to support speaker schedules. 

WHO?   Organized and supported by A-CHAMP, Autism Research Institute, Coalition for Mercury Free Drugs, Generation Rescue, Moms Against Mercury, National Autism Association, NoMercury, National Vaccine Information Center , and a growing list of organizations.

WHERE TO STAY?   We are pleased to offer very special room rates at the Hilton Washington Hotel, the site of the DAN! 2006 Spring Conference, at 1919 Connecticut Ave. NW , Washington, DC. The low rate of $158.00 per night is available exclusively. Call New Hope Travel, toll free, at 1-866-208-0207. Availability is extremely limited and we strongly urge you to make your reservations early. It would be to everyone's advantage to try and get a couple of roommates to cut down on the cost of the rooms.

We understand the limitations families experience. It is not necessary to be attending DAN! the hotel accommodations are being arranged and we will update you about this soon.  

Registration for the DAN! Conference at:   http://www.danconference.com/ 

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW?   If you plan to attend The Mercury Generation March, please register here

http://capwiz.com/a-champ/issues/alert/?alertid=7938006&type=CU 

Call your representative to schedule an appointment on April 6. Tell the scheduler you would like to see the representative personally, or a senior policy advisor if an in-person meeting with the representative cannot be arranged.

Contact information for your representative is available at    http://capwiz.com/a-champ/home/ Go to the bottom of the page to Congress & President and enter your zip code. Your representative's picture and contact information will be available at the bottom of this page. Click "info" and all contact and back ground information will be on this page.  

WHAT TO BRING?   Personally-designed signs, posters, etc. Consider writing a brief personal note that you can leave with your representative along with a picture of your child.

WHAT TO WEAR?  Weather will be unpredictable, prepare for anything. Wear comfortable clothing.  Rally T-Shirts are being designed and will be sold prior to the rally.

Maps will be provided. March route will be posted soon.

List of VIP Speakers will be announced closer to event. 

Information will be continually updated.

Mark your calendar for April 6th. Raise your voice for your child!

Official RALLY WEB SITE: www.themercurygenerationmarch.org

'As individual fingers we can easily be broken,
but all together we make a mighty fist.'   –  Sitting Bull

By DAN OLMSTED

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- As doctors and health authorities fight state bans on mercury in vaccines and keep giving it to kids and pregnant women, one fact stands out: their certainty.

The image of pediatricians and public officials as valiant defenders of mercury takes a bit of getting used to, given their longstanding efforts to keep the toxic element out of our food, our bodies and the environment.

No reasonable person -- let alone health professional -- would advocate keeping mercury in childhood vaccines unless they were absolutely certain it was an exception to this lethal legacy.

That's especially so because vaccines can be made without the mercury preservative, called thimerosal. You can take it out and still protect the health of American children through vaccination, and if you had a shred of doubt about its safety, surely you would.

If you keep it in, you had better be right.

But what is the real degree of certainty that thimerosal is safe? Is it absolute? Beyond a reasonable doubt? A preponderance of the evidence -- the lesser standard that applies in civil cases but not when someone's freedom (or life) is at stake?

Here's the kind of thing that makes doctors -- most of whom have no more ability than you or I to investigate the safety of vaccines for themselves -- feel so certain. It's a paper titled "Vaccine Safety Controversies and the Future of Vaccination Programs," and it appears in the November 2005 issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.

The authors are from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends the childhood immunization schedule; the United Nations World Health Organization, which oversees the vaccination of tens of millions of people worldwide every year, and several big universities. The report was supported by "unrestricted grants from GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Sanofi Pasteur MSD, several universities and other institutions."

"Thimerosal has been used for (more than) 60 years in infant vaccines and in other applications and has not been associated with adverse health effects in the general population, except when persons have been exposed to amounts many orders of magnitude greater than found in vaccines or pharmaceuticals," the authors write.

That's a ringing endorsement of safety (whether it's supported by the data is an issue I'll address in upcoming columns). But keep reading: "It should also be borne in mind that the risks of thimerosal-containing vaccines to the fetus, premature infant and low-weight infant have insufficiently been studied."

Whoa. "Insufficiently studied" -- after more than 60 years of giving thimerosal to pregnant women and babies of every size and shape? Nonetheless, the CDC recommends flu shots for pregnant women and 6-to-23-months-olds and won't recommend thimerosal-free versions. As a result, most flu shots still contain mercury.

Another new study is condescendingly titled, "When science is not enough -- a risk/benefit profile of thimerosal-containing vaccines," by Australians C. John Clements and Peter B. McIntyre in the journal Expert Opinion on Drug Safety:

"Thimerosal is safe as a vaccine preservative, and should continue to be used in settings where accessibility and cost require that multi-dose vials of vaccine are available."

Clements advises the WHO on vaccine policy; McIntyre is director of Australia's National Center for Immunization Research and Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases.

"The overwhelming weight of scientific opinion rejects the hypothesis that neurodevelopmental abnormalities are causally related to the use of thimerosal in vaccines," they point out.

This is the kind of ammunition public health officials and the American Academy of Pediatrics are firing back at proponents of mercury bans --"overwhelming" evidence that thimerosal is safe. In Illinois, the state AAP vigorously opposed the ban.

"Though well intended, these bills do not advance public health and could inadvertently diminish our state's efforts at fighting influenza," the AAP said. "Though it is a mercury-containing compound, thimerosal does not pass from the bloodstream into the brain to any significant degree."

The state legislators listened politely to that dubious assertion -- and voted to limit thimerosal in childhood vaccines anyway. But that was not the last word.

As reported by R. L. Nave in the Illinois Times last month: "Citing cost concerns and a potential shortfall for the upcoming flu season, the Illinois Department of Public Health filed for a 12-month exemption to the Mercury-Free Vaccine Act, passed last summer to limit the use of vaccines containing mercury. However, child-health-care advocates who lobbied for the bill's passage are upset by what they believe was a premeditated attempt by IDPH to circumvent state law."

This is what you call chutzpah -- public health authorities thwarting the express will of the people, certain that flu shots will save humanity and mercury never hurt anybody. Does the governor never fire anyone?

Almost lost in this crossfire is the simple fact that in 1999, these selfsame health authorities -- the CDC, the Public Health Service, the pediatricians, the family physicians -- urged drug companies to remove thimerosal from childhood immunizations in the United States as soon as possible.

Most childhood vaccines -- in the United States, not overseas -- are now thimerosal-free. But that's hardly a blanket reassurance, because most flu shots do contain thimerosal.

Yet the CDC is still studying whether thimerosal causes autism.

"We do agree the preponderance of evidence to date suggests there is no association between thimerosal and autism," CDC spokesman Glen Nowak told us last month. But he said CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding is committed to exploring all possibilities until the cause or causes of the disorder are identified.

"Dr. Gerberding has made it clear the CDC has not ruled out anything as possible causes of autism, including thimerosal," Nowak said. "Science is a dynamic process. We have continued to fund studies to look at the role, if any, of thimerosal."

Given these caveats, what would you do? Well, there are two maxims of medicine that might apply. "First, do no harm," is the obvious one.

The second, related concept is the precautionary principle which, according to wikipedia.org, "is the idea that if the consequences of an action are unknown, but are judged to have some potential for major or irreversible negative consequences, then it is better to avoid that action."

So: Vaccines don't need mercury. Even government experts acknowledge some possible risks -- to the fetus, for example -- are insufficiently studied 60 years on. A link to autism has not been ruled out. They're continuing to investigate, as they should.

But the doctors and their public and private allies are battling state by state to stop mercury bans, and the CDC won't recommend a thimerosal-free flu shot for kids and pregnant woman. There's a phrase for this approach:

Bombs away.

E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com

Frist denies protection was added in secret

By BILL THEOBALD
Gannett News Service

Published: Thursday, 02/09/06

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, say witnesses to the pre-Christmas power play.

The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill at the last minute without the approval of members of a House-Senate conference committee, say several witnesses, including a top Republican staff member.

In an interview, Frist, a doctor and Tennessee Republican, denied that the wording was added that way.

Trial lawyers and other groups condemn the law, saying it could make it nearly impossible for people harmed by a vaccine to force the drug maker to pay for their injuries.

Many in health care counter that the protection is needed to help build up the vaccine industry in the United States, especially in light of a possible avian flu pandemic.

The legislation, called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, allows the secretary of Health and Human Services to declare a public health emergency, which then provides immunity for companies that develop vaccines and other "countermeasures."

Beyond the issue of vaccine liability protection, some say going around the longstanding practice of bipartisan House-Senate conference committees' working out compromises on legislation is a dangerous power grab by Republican congressional leaders that subverts democracy.

"It is a travesty of the legislative process," said Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

"It vests enormous power in the hands of congressional leaders and private interests, minimizes transparency and denies legitimate opportunities for all interested parties, in Congress and outside, to weigh in on important policy questions."

At issue is what happened Dec. 18 as Congress scrambled to finish its business and head home for the Christmas holiday.

That day, a conference committee made up of 38 senators and House members met several times to work out differences on the 2006 Defense Department appropriations bill.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the ranking minority House member on the conference committee, said he asked Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the conference chairman, whether the vaccine liability language was in the massive bill or would be placed in it.

Obey and four others at the meeting said Stevens told him no. Committee members signed off on the bill and the conference broke up.

A spokeswoman for Stevens, Courtney Boone, said last week that the vaccine liability language was in the bill when conferees approved it. Stevens was not made available for comment.

During a January interview, Frist agreed. Asked about the claim that the vaccine language was inserted after the conference members signed off on the bill, he replied: "To my knowledge, that is incorrect. It was my understanding, you'd have to sort of confirm, that the vaccine liability which had been signed off by leaders of the conference, signed off by the leadership in the United States Senate, signed off by the leadership of the House, it was my understanding throughout that that was part of that conference report."

But Keith Kennedy, who works for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., as staff director for the Senate Appropriations Committee, said at a seminar for reporters last month that the language was inserted by Frist and Hastert, R-Ill., after the conference committee ended its work.

"There should be no dispute. That was an absolute travesty," Kennedy said at a videotaped Washington, D.C., forum sponsored by the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

"It was added after the conference had concluded. It was added at the specific direction of the speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate. The conferees did not vote on it. It's a true travesty of the process."

After the conference committee broke up, a meeting was called in Hastert's office, Kennedy said. Also at the meeting, according to a congressional staffer, were Frist, Stevens and House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

"They (committee staff members) were given the language and then it was put in the document," Kennedy said.

About 10 or 10:30 p.m., Democratic staff members were handed the language and told it was now in the bill, Obey said.

He took to the House floor in a rage. He called Frist and Hastert "a couple of musclemen in Congress who think they have a right to tell everybody else that they have to do their bidding."

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., also was critical of inserting the vaccine language after the conference committee had adjourned.

"It sucks," he told Congress Daily that night.

Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., another member of the conference committee, was upset, too, a staff member said, because he didn't have enough time to read the language. The final bill was filed in the House at 11:54 p.m. and passed 308-102 at 5:02 the next morning.

The Senate unanimously approved the legislation Dec. 21, but not before Senate Democrats, including several members of the conference committee, bashed the way the vaccine language was inserted.

"What an insult to the legislative process," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., a member of the conference committee. Byrd is considered the authority on legislative rules and tradition.

President Bush signed the legislation into law Dec. 30.

When asked about Frist's earlier denial, spokeswoman Amy Call said: "Bill Frist has fought hard to protect the people of Tennessee and the people of the United States from a bioterror emergency and that's what he did throughout this process."

Hastert's office did not provide a response.

Not against the rules

The practice of adding to a compromise bill worked out by bipartisan House-Senate conference committees, while highly unusual, is not thought to violate congressional rules.

Some Senate and House Democrats have proposed banning the practice as part of broader attempts at ethics reform in Congress.

They, consumer groups and others with concerns about possible harm caused by vaccines charge that the move was a gift by Frist to the pharmaceutical industry, which they point out has given a lot of campaign cash to the Nashville doctor through the years.

"The senator should be working to ensure there are safe vaccines to protect American families rather than protecting the drug industry's pocketbooks," Pamela Gilbert, president of Protect American Families, said in a statement. The group is an alliance of consumer, labor and advocacy organizations.

Frist has received $271,523 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and health products industry since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.

He is also a possible candidate for president in 2008.

In the interview, Frist reiterated how important he thinks the vaccine protections are.

"The United States of America, if a pandemic occurs, is totally unprepared," he said. "And the only way we are going to be prepared is rebuilding our manufacturing base to build a vaccine infrastructure that can be timely and responsive. We don't have it today."

Frist has long advocated liability protection for vaccine makers, and it was widely reported that he would attempt to attach the legislation to the Defense Appropriations bill because it is considered must-pass legislation.

Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said that, while the group favors liability protection, it did not take a position nor did it lobby on behalf of the law that passed. •

Friday, February 10, 2006

State Representative David Linsky, D-Natick, today announced this week that the House of Representatives unanimously approved legislation to regulate the sale and disposal of products containing mercury, a well-known environmental contaminant and public health threat.

    Linsky, who has been a member of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, voted in favor of the bill.

    "Mercury is an incredibly toxic substance that has had almost no regulation," Linsky said in a press release. "This is a common-sense bill that will protect people, animals and environment from harm due to mercury exposure. I don't think anybody realizes just how high the risks are - and how preventable as well."

    The legislation focuses on the production, disposal, collection and labeling of products that contain mercury. If mercury-added products are sent to landfills and incinerators, the substance is emitted into the air and ends up in lakes, streams, rivers and reservoirs. Most human exposure to mercury comes from eating fish and can lead to brain damage and learning disabilities.

    The bill, which now moves to the Senate for consideration, also mandates the Department of Environmental Protection to create an education program to inform individuals and businesses about mercury-added products and offer instruction on their safe disposal. "Education is key," Linsky said. "People just don't think about mercury as something to worry about."

    Four other New England states - Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine - have enacted similar laws restricting the use and disposal of mercury.

Bestselling Book on Mercury and Autism Updated with New Science, Politics and Media Reports; Title Chosen as a “Reading Group Gold” Selection for Winter 2006  

NEW YORK – The New York Times bestseller “Evidence of Harm – Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, A Medical Controversy” ( St. Martin’s Press, $14.95 ISBN: 0-312-326459-0 ), will be issued in PAPERBACK this February, with a new postscript that updates readers on the growing controversy over the past year.

Evidence of Harm is the story of parents with autistic children who learn that their kids received levels of mercury in their vaccines far in excess of Federal safety limits. They take on Big Business, Big Science and Big Government with a radical new theory on the cause, uncovering compelling evidence that a mercury-based vaccine preservative, Thimerosal, could have played a role in the disease. Today, the parents and their medical, scientific, legal, and political allies are getting closer to establishing their claim.

The paperback edition contains a year’s worth of new information, including:

• Newly LEAKED TRANSCRIPTS suggesting US Government pressure on the
  Institute of Medicine to reject an association between vaccines and autism.
• Evidence showing that some IOM reviewers had unpublicized CONFLICTS OF
  INTEREST with the government and drug industry.
• Calls on Capitol Hill for a thimerosal INVESTIGATION, and new attempts to
  access secretive vaccine safety data.
• Recent thimerosal HEADLINES with news about Don Imus, Robert Kennedy, Jr.,
  Sen. Joe Lieberman, Sen. Chuck Hagel and others.
• Newly published DATA showing that vaccine mercury accumulates in
  the brain, which can cause the same brain swelling found in autistic people.

By most accounts, autism is now epidemic in the United States. In the 1990's, reported autism cases among American children began spiking, from about 1 in 10,000 children in 1987 to a shocking 1 in 166 today.  In this period, new shots containing Thimerosal were added to the nation's already crowded vaccination schedule.In 1999, the FDA announced that children were being exposed to mercury at very young ages at levels far exceeding federal regulations, but the public health establishment failed to take parental concerns about the impact seriously. Evidence of Harm explores both sides of this issue, which has pitted families and their allies against the federal government, public health agencies, medical academies, and powerful pharmaceutical giants. 

A “READING GROUP GOLD” SELECTION

The paperback edition of Evidence of Harm has been selected as one of four Reading Group Gold titles for Winter 2006. This new program, being launched by St. Martin’s/ Griffin, is designed to make reading group information for books accessible to consumers and booksellers. Each season, a select number of Griffin trade paperbacks will have a medallion on the cover to denote them “Reading Group Gold” titles.

These outstanding titles are selected by an in-house committee of St. Martin’s Press/Griffin as the best reading group books of the season. They will include additional material in the back of the books, including author interviews and reading group questions. More information about the program will soon be available at: www.readinggroupgold.com

MOVIE RIGHTS OPTIONED

 Evidence of Harm has also been optioned by a rising MOVIE COMPANY: Los Angeles-based Participant Productions. Formed to produce films on important current topics, Participant has released titles that earned strong buzz in 2005. Its movies were nominated for eight Golden Globe Awards, including Best Drama for “Good Night and Good Luck,” Best Dramatic Actress (Charlize Theron) for “ North Country,” and Best Director (George Clooney) for “Syriana.” Two respected producers have signed onto the Evidence of Harm project: Nick Wechsler, who recently produced “ North Co untry ,” and Ross Bell, producer of “Fight Club.”

Meanwhile, author David Kirby has just been named “PERSON OF THE YEAR” by Spectrum, the nation’s largest and most influential autism magazine. Kirby, who will appear on the cover of the February issue, will be honored by the magazine at a reception in Long Island, NY, this spring.

For more information, please contact:
Elizabeth Coxe , Publicist, St. Martin’s Press: 646-307-5563/ elizabeth.coxe@stmartins.com
Vicki Lame , Publicity Assistant, St. Martin’s Press: 646-307-5553/ vicki.lame@stmartins.com

More From David Kirby
Mercury Rising
’Evidence of Harm’ author on the recent thimerosal media frenzy by David Kirby

Exactly six years ago, the U.S. Government announced that most American children were being exposed to mercury in vaccines that surpassed federal safety levels and called for the removal of the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, from childhood shots “as soon as possible.”

Just over a year ago, the esteemed Institute of Medicine found no link between thimerosal and the development of autism. Many people assumed -- and many hoped -- that the IOM report would be the last word on the emotional debate, closing the door on the thimerosal drama forever. But they were wrong.

Since that report was issued in May 2004, extraordinary developments have transpired in the field of scientific research, throughout the American mass media, and within the high-powered halls of Washington.

It is hard to pick up the paper, turn on the TV or tune in to “Imus in the Morning” without hearing chatter about thimerosal and whether it causes autism or not.

Welcome to the story that just won’t go away. My main motivation for writing the book, Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, ( St. Martin’s Press 2005) was to spark a national conversation about the effects of mercury on developing fetuses and infants, and whether a subset of children might be genetically susceptible to heavy metal toxicity. I never dreamed that the debate would become so loud and heated – so fast.

Since the IOM report was issued dismissing any link between thimerosal and autism, there has been a dizzying flurry of activity and information to emerge around the hot-button issue. What follows is a brief summary for those who are trying desperately to keep up (which is anything but easy).

ADVANCES IN SCIENCE

Very recent studies, presented at major autism conferences or published in respected, peer-reviewed journals, have reported intriguing findings that, when taken together, could support a link between mercury and autism. Some of this work has been derided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “junk science”

conducted by “charlatans.”

Study: Comparison of Blood and Brain Mercury Levels in Infant Monkeys Exposed to Methylmercury or Vaccines Containing Thimerosal Source:

University of Washington/National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences – Published in Environmental Health Perspectives. Summary:

In primates, ethylmercury from vaccines (in the form of thimerosal), once it enters the brain, converts to inorganic mercury at two to three times the rate of methylmercury, which is found in fish.

Inorganic mercury lacks a natural transport system out of the brain, where it remains for long periods of time, perhaps indefinitely. A previous study by the same team found that inorganic mercury trapped in the brain resulted in serious changes in brain tissue, including unchecked proliferation of microglial cells (white cell matter), which is consistent with the finding of |big brains| in autistic children.

Study: Altered cytokine profile in children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD): Evidence for immune dysregulation. Source: University of California – M.I.N.D. Institute, Presented at the 2005 International Meeting for Autism Research. Summary: Children with autism have a markedly different immune profile from normal kids.

They are found to have increased autoimmunity, extremely high levels of certain immune cells and cytokines, and an imbalance of immune cells to antibodies (TH1 vs. TH2 response). These abnormal conditions also appear in the literature on mercury toxicity.

Study: National Autism Prevalence Trends From United States Special Education Data Source: John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health – Published in Pediatrics. Summary: The rate of increase in new cases of autism among children born every year in the United States was relatively stable until 1987, when the rate suddenly began to spike, and then continued to rise among children born in each subsequent birth cohort. A second spike in the rate of increase was noted in 1992, a few years after which, the rate began to level off. (It is interesting to note that, between 1987 and 1992, with the introduction of new thimerosal containing vaccines, total mercury exposure from infant immunization went from 75 to nearly 240 micrograms). Meanwhile, the reported incidence of mental retardation and other childhood disorders remained constant, meaning that “diagnostic substitution” was not an explanation for the rise in autism cases.

Study: Metabolic biomarkers of increased oxidative stress and impaired methylation capacity in children with autism Source:

University of Arkansas – Arkansas Children’s Hospital published in Biology. Summary: Children with autism have extremely low or depleted levels of sulfur-based bio-chemicals known as thiols (a synonym for thiol is mercaptan, or literally, “mercury capturer”). The reason is thought to be genetic. Without these substances, such as the protein glutathione, these genetically variant children suffer from oxidative stress and show a reduced capacity to eliminate heavy metals like mercury. Biomedical intervention with a variety of natural substances was shown to elevate thiol levels in study children to normal levels.

Study: Neurotoxic effects of postnatal thimerosal are mouse strain dependent. Source: Columbia University – Published in Molecular Psychology Summary: Mice with a genetic predisposition to autoimmunity showed horrific reactions to thimerosal containing vaccines compared to mice without the autoimmunity. Sensitive mice showed repetitive and self-injurious behavior, including grooming themselves or their cage mates incessantly, sometimes to the point of death. They also were found to have increased brain size compared to the typical (control) mice exposed to the same vaccine schedule.

Study: Activation of methionine synthase by insulin-like growth

factor-1 and dopamine: a target for neurodevelopmental toxins and thimerosal. Source: Northeastern University – Published in Molecular Psychiatry Summary: Thimerosal, when exposed to cells with certain genetic mutations, can interfere with critical metabolic processes, including something called methylation. Methylation is crucial for proper gene expression, DNA/RNA growth and for the development of neurotransmitters and essential fatty acids – including myelin which protect the nerves and brain. Methylation is also needed for the development of sulfur-based thiols (or “mercury capturers”) such as glutathione, and other detoxification functions.

Study: Environmental mercury release, special education rates, and autism disorder: an ecological study of Texas. Source: University of Texas – Published in Health and Place Summary: Mercury released primarily from coal-fired power plants may be contributing to an increase in the number of cases of autism. The study found that autism increased in Texas counties as mercury emissions rose. For every thousand pounds of environmentally released mercury, there was a 61 percent increase in autism rates. The study looked at Texas county-by-county levels of mercury emissions and compared them to the rates of autism and special education services in 1,200 Texas school districts.

One county with low mercury emissions but significant autism rates was found to harbor the nation’s largest mercury mine. An author of the study said it shows a potentially “important connection between environmental exposure to mercury and the development of autism.”

HEADLINES AND AIRWAVES

Don Imus is the mass media godfather of thimerosal theorists. Imus has interviewed me three times, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once. He continues to push the issue to the forefront almost each morning, challenging “wimpy” news anchors to cover the topic, and haranguing top political types for their deafening silence on the issue. Imus even got Newsweek’s Evan Thomas and NBC News’ Brian Williams and Tim Russert all to admit that, yes, this is a