Jia-Rui Chong from the Los Angeles Times reports (Jan 8, 2008, Mercury's removal doesn't stop autism's rise, study shows, repost on the Chicago Tribune):
The prevalence of autism in California children continued to rise after most vaccine manufacturers started to remove the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in 1999, suggesting that the chemical was not a primary cause of the disorder, according to a study released Monday.
The analysis found that from 2004 to 2007, when exposure to thimerosal dropped significantly for 3 to 5 year olds, the autism rate continued to increase in that group from 3.0 to 4.1 per 1,000 children.
"If mercury exposure in vaccines was a major cause of autism, then the number of . . . affected kids should have diminished once they were no longer exposed to thimerosal," said Dr. Robert Schechter, lead author of the study and a medical officer at the state Department of Public Health. "That is not what we found."....
...Over the last two decades, the number of cases has boomed across the country for still-unexplained reasons. Psychiatrists estimated that 20 years ago there were 0.2 to 0.5 cases for every 1,000 children. Last year, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there were 6.6 cases per 1,000 schoolchildren, based on a study of 8-year-olds.....
...The researchers looked at all reported cases in the state starting with children born in 1989. They found the number of cases per 1,000 children has been steadily increasing from that point to March 2007, the end point of the study....
...The National Autism Assn. criticized the study, saying that some children may still be exposed to mercury through either flu shots or trace amounts in other vaccines. The group also said that some vaccines containing thimerosal had expiration dates as late as 2005 and may have been used up to that point.
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