Autism and mercury link can't be proven, scientists insist

• The Bush administration assembled a group of leading scientists on Tuesday in yet another attempt to quash public fears over a purported link between a mercury preservative once used in childhood vaccines and the mysteriously neurological malady called autism, the Associated Press reported.
  
  
• One scientist with a 12-year-old autistic daughter joined U.S. officials in urging that the focus shift to finding the real culprit.
  
  
• "We need a war on autism, not a war on childhood vaccines," said Dr. Peter Hotez of George Washington University.
  
  
• The microbiologist said he's sure that his daughter's condition had "absolutely nothing to do with vaccines she received," the AP quoted him as saying.
  
  
• The preservative thimerosal had been used to preserve certain pharmaceuticals since the 1930s, the wire service said.
  
  
• Critics say studies that have found no connection between the preservative and autism are flawed.
  
  
• Thimerosal is no longer used in most vaccines, although some flu inoculations still contain the preservative.
  
  
• Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to speed its phase-out from flu vaccines, the AP said.

Posted by Anonymous

« Home | The CDC, Autism and Elastic Statistics » //-->