Posted on 10/28/2009 12:17:23 AM PDT by neverdem
Many parents worry about a possible link between autism and mercury exposure. But most research dismisses those fears as groundless, and a new study says autistic children actually have lower blood levels of mercury than children who are developing normally.
Mercury levels were closely related to fish intake, the study found, and children with autism and related disorders tend to be picky eaters who avoid fish.
After researchers adjusted for the lower fish consumption of autistic children, they found no differences between their mercury levels and those in other children.
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of public health sciences at the University of California, Davis, who was the study’s principal investigator, said the new findings did not address whether mercury might play a role in autism...
--snip--
The report, published online on Oct. 19 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, is part of a continuing study comparing autistic and nonautistic children in California. The study of 452 participants includes 249 children with autism or autism spectrum disorders, 143 who are developing normally and 60 with developmental delays.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
"...autistic children actually have lower blood levels of mercury than children who are developing normally."
NYT Article Content: the study’s principal investigator, said the new findings did not address whether mercury might play a role in autism.
Remember kids, truly world-class, shameless bald-faced lying can only be done by professional, certified journalists. Don't try this at home.
That's the Fool's Gold. This is the real "money quote:"
“We were measuring levels after the diagnosis had already been made and was months in the past in most cases,” Dr. Hertz-Picciotto said. “So this study does not provide evidence for or against.”
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Sounds like a lack of mercury in the diet causes autism.
... or a lack of fish.
Exactly...if a parent felt that mercury was the cause of their child’s autism...they would keep them away from fish.
We eat fish a lot at our house (my guys are always fishing) yet the Fish and Wildlife Agency in our state puts out a chart of which fish should be eaten and how often, based on their mercury content, so we follow it.
These kids mercury level was measured way after diagnosis, and could be accounted for by lack of fish. Don’t think there’s much we can take in regards to causation of autism from this one.
I have a close friend at work who has 5 year old TWIN boys. One is autistic, the other is not.
Loosely quoted from an article which can't be posted on FR:"The decision not to vaccinate your child is not a decision to take no risk. It's a decision to take a different risk. By taking that different risk, you may get a chance to find out what it a child dying of pertussis or meningitis looks like."
Saw a documentary the other night at my parent’s about the identical twin girls (now in their 50’s) that are autistic. They have amazing memories and are obsessed with Dick Clark. Interesting stuff.
Even identical twins are not verbatim molecularly identical, and virtually always have different personalities. Brain chemistry is associated with many sorts of chemical cycles that are kept in various states of metabolic "balance." It wouldn't take much of a flaw to disrupt, for example, sensitivity to a process that monitored such a metabolic balance, which would then have a dramatic effect on brain function in a way that couldn't be easily corrected. Metabolic triggers are often extremely minute - an example is the crucial importance of "trace" minerals. So, with something as potentially toxic as mercury, it wouldn't take much of an increased sensitivity to have a very different reaction to identical "trace" amounts between children.
And when they are young enough to still have developing immune systems (such as when they first start receiving massively combined vaccinations nowadays), it is not at all inconceivable that the vaccinations could overwhelm the immune systems of the children who have not yet developed as much as others.
Removing squalene and mercury and other known toxic materials, and pacing the vaccinations over a longer period of time and separating them so the immune system is stressed as little as possible, would be easily available solutions to huge concerns about vaccinations.
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