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Mercury on the Mind

portlandatheist

Illuminator
portlandatheist
Joined
Jun 9, 2007
Messages
3,725
So my parents sent me a hard copy of this gem:
http://www.naturalchoice.net/articles/mercurymind.htm
From the article
Although they afflict widely different age groups, autism and Alzheimer’s disease share a common cause: mercury.
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My parents don't really buy it, but they are more along the lines of "Hey, what about this article? Debunk this..."
So, I'm going to sit down and Fisk this article, but in the meantime, I would appreciate any help to debunk this piece of crap. The doctor doesn't cite the supposed studies but does mention a few books for reference. I'm also really bothered by the "thimerosal contains mercury" that I read so often. I guess salt "contains" chlorine and water "contains" hydrogen as well. Additionally, I find the anecdotal reports, post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, and conspiracy of government/big pharma unconvincing.
Here are a few more gems:
Autism was discovered in 1943, in American children, twelve years after ethyl mercury (thimerosal) was added to the pertussis vaccine. (The disease was not seen in Europe until the 1950s, after thimerosal was added to vaccines used there.) I
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And more...
Investigators have shown that there is a direct relationship between increasing doses of mercury in vaccines and autism.
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And who are these "investigators"? We may never know.
The disturbing thing is many readers buy it hook, line, and sinker. What utter tripe.

Anyway, any help debunking this article would be most appreciated. It looks like this article has been circulated widely
 
Briefly:

First, thimerosal does metabolize in part to ethylmercury, so I wouldn't bother with the analogy to sodium chloride.

Second, numerous studies have not shown a direct relationship between increasing doses of mercury in vaccines and autism, and all but the most singleminded among the so-called "mercury militia" have recently been backpedalling from their previous position of autism being a "misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning".

It can be a bit difficult to decide where to begin with someone who dredges up garbage like that and challenges you to "debunk" it. It's also hard to see where it will end, because (as debaters of creationists can attest) garbage tends in general to be easier to dredge up than to debunk, so it's worth giving some thought to whether you're ready to play that game -- but if you really want to make this a project, and have the time to devote to it, you might do well to begin by sifting through the archives at Respectful Insolence. Every possible aspect of this exhaustive exercise in excrementia has been covered there in excruciating detail.
 
Vaccines have been overwhelmingly ruled out as a cause of autism. And while there was an hypothesis about aluminum and Alzheimer's, that avenue of investigation has been discarded as well.

The Autism Research Institute is not a credible organization. I looked into Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD and found he's a quack who according to him is also a cardiac surgeon in Seattle. He might be but he's an idiot, nonetheless. He has articles against fluoridated water and mercury from dental amalgams to vaccines. Then there is his latest jewel, Questioning HIV/AIDS, Human-Caused Global Warming, and Other Orthodoxies in the Biomedical Sciences.

In that last one he cites Peter Duesberg, known HIV denier. According to Miller:
The real cause [of HIV-AIDS]: Lifestyle (receptive anal intercourse), heavy duty recreational drugs (cocaine, heroin, nitrite inhalants, and amphetamines), anti-viral chemotherapy, and nutrition. In the West, 98 percent of AIDS cases occur in gay men and IV drug users.
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He is supposedly still teaching at the U of WA. I am going to have to alert my colleagues about this quack. I wonder if they are aware of him.
 
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How many bona fide cases of mercury poisonings are there ?

Yes, it is poisonous, but poisoning depends on dosage. My own believe is that NOBODY get heavy metal poisoning from the normal environment. You can't eat enough fish, dissolve enough of your own fillings, inhale enough flourescent bulbs, in your whole lifetime to get poisoned.

Hmm, maybe we could invent some more TOXINS, just for our own skeptical enjoyment?

"Copper toxicity". from our water pipes? Major cause of skin pigmentation, or tanning?

Nylonosis, from microfibers off of our carpets? Effects your neurological system, hence your personality- ever heard of 'plastic' people? Often confused with the same symptoms caused by Latex paint.

And the addictive "New Car Smell". Causes neurological damage effecting judgment. Extreme conspicuous consumption causes susceptible people to go buy a new car every couple years, even though the old one still runs fine. "Big Auto" hides this disease, it's all a plot.
 
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Wasn't the mercury/vaccine and autism connection completely debunked when California banned thimerosal from the vaccines and autism diagnoses still increased?

Also, the strongest argument they have is strictly correlational. So why not blame any number of other things that coincided with the increase in autism and Alzheimer's diagnoses? I think it's the evil iPods that are doing it. Or maybe GPS technology. Or the latest sugar substitute. Or TV that's not broadcast through the airwaves. Or maybe debit card scanners. Heck, I bet every child diagnosed with autism or autism-like syndrome was exposed to ultrasound waves in utero. There's about as strong a case for any of these things being the culprit as there is for mercury in vaccines.
 
Another tack: even if they're right and there is some increased risk for autism caused by vaccines (and there almost certainly isn't), they'd have to admit that it's a very very minor increased risk since the vast majority of people who receive vaccines aren't subsequently diagnosed with autism. So you still have to weigh the risk vs. benefit of vaccines. The risk of the vaccine causing autism (if it exists at all) is very very slight. The benefit of not getting the diseases the vaccines prevent (especially as a matter of public health and not just as individual choice) is enormous.
 
I attended a lecture on autism and vaccines last year, and the general consensus was that vaccines do not cause autism in children. Unless something was just discovered that I am unaware of.
 
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leon_heller said:
The hypothesis that the MMR vaccines cause autism (and IBD) has never been substantiated and the original researcher has got into serious trouble over it with the GMC.

Leon
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The OP was concerned with mercury containing vaccines, not MMR (which is a live vaccine, so doesn't contain any). Mind you, the anti-vax loons seem to glide seamlessly between the two theories - they don't seem to care as long as they can blame one or more vaccines for it.
 
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casebro said:
How many bona fide cases of mercury poisonings are there ?

Yes, it is poisonous, but poisoning depends on dosage. My own believe is that NOBODY get heavy metal poisoning from the normal environment. You can't eat enough fish, dissolve enough of your own fillings, inhale enough flourescent bulbs, in your whole lifetime to get poisoned.

Hmm, maybe we could invent some more TOXINS, just for our own skeptical enjoyment?

"Copper toxicity". from our water pipes? Major cause of skin pigmentation, or tanning?

Nylonosis, from microfibers off of our carpets? Effects your neurological system, hence your personality- ever heard of 'plastic' people? Often confused with the same symptoms caused by Latex paint.

And the addictive "New Car Smell". Causes neurological damage effecting judgment. Extreme conspicuous consumption causes susceptible people to go buy a new car every couple years, even though the old one still runs fine. "Big Auto" hides this disease, it's all a plot.
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Don't forget all the poisonous chlorine in table sale and the explosive phosphorous in soft drinks and toothpaste.
 
JoeEllison said:
Don't forget all the poisonous chlorine in table sale and the explosive phosphorous in soft drinks and toothpaste.
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And concurrent with the rise in the "Autism epidemic" has been an increase in the use of Sodium Phosphate in treated meat! A One-Two punch fersure! Corn also has high phosphorous, so it's triple whammy of the Corn Dogs! Plus the Lignose from the wooden stick! Why, we've all heard of Wood Alcohol, (methyl alcohol, methanol)! Methanol is known to kill via neurological effects...

Hmmm, wood alcohol is made by yeast, eating cellulose. We've all got the yeast digesting food in out digestive tracts... It's the high fiber diet craze that's killing us all!!! DOOM! DOOM I tell you! Why as proof, all one need do is visit a dairy farm, where cows digest the plant cellulose in their multiple stomachs. Think about how stoooopid cows are- natural, or the result of brain damage caused my man feeding the cows an unnatural diet? Animal abuse!!! Why, they make so much methanol that they have reached saturation, and fart out the excess, so much so that they are a major cause of BGW- Bovinogenic Global Warming! Why, the "Autism Epidemic" is a mere harbinger of DOOM! DOOM I tell you!!!!
 
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All I can say is that if Thimerisol in clinical doses caused brain damage then my siblings and I should all be basket cases. We always had a bottle of Tincture of Merthiolate, which is thimerisol, at home to put on cuts. It was used like Iodine, and stained you bright red. I fell down a lot, and would get slathered in the stuff. Or I would tear a cuticle, slather it with Merthiolate, and then chew on it.

One of our state reps wrote an op/ed piece in the local paper calling for repeal of mandatory vaccination. She quoted the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons call for such action as support for her position.

Never having heard of them, I did a Google search. Guess what? It's a conservative/libertarian advocacy group whose most prominent member is Ron Paul. They are against not only mandatory vaccination, but also fluoridation, medicare, medicaid, national health insurance, and gun control (doctors need to be able to protect themselves from people trying to steal their drugs). They are against forcing pharmacists to fill emergency contraception prescriptions, and are against abortion, because they claim it causes and increased risk of breast cancer. Their journal is not in the National Library of Medicine database. It is listed on Quackwatch as "fundamentally flawed."

They are publishing my rebuttal tomorrow in the sunday opinion section. One small step in the battle against woo science.

In battling such claims, one tack to take is the one I did. Find out where the studies were published. Is it a reputable peer review scientific journal?

In this case, the Autism Research Institution is listed on Quackwatch under "questionable "research" entities"

http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecorg.html
 
casebro said:
How many bona fide cases of mercury poisonings are there ?

....
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Yep, they exist, and they do not look at all like autism:
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/168/2/201

Also, portlandathiest, here is a list of articles that you might find helpful (she included all articles, including the bad ones):
http://www.neurodiversity.com/thimerosal.html

More journal articles:
http://www.immunize.org/journalarticles/conc_aut.asp
and
http://www.immunize.org/journalarticles/conc_thim.asp

And this:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?cat=36
 
Hydrogen Cyanide?

Hydrogen Cyanide?!?!

You'll blow up AND poison us all!!!:p
 
Excellent. I now have some great new information on this topic. As far as my parents are concerned, the fact that this clown is an AIDS denialist and an AGW denialist, although ad hominem, is enough for them to thoroughly disregard anything else this guy has to say about vaccines so thanks for the links Skeptigirl!

From the article in the OP:
Editors of these journals will not publish studies that show a link between thimerosal and autism like “Thimerosal in Childhood Vaccines, Neurodevelopment Disorders, and Heart Disease in the United States” by Mark and David Geier, which documents a strong association between the amounts of mercury injected in vaccines and autism. Such articles can only find acceptance in alternative (i.e., “politically incorrect”) journals like the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, where this one was published.
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I think its absurd to state that "mainstream" journals simply choose not to publish something because it shows a link with Autism. I'm sure any of these journals would love to publish a breakthrough in the cause of Autism of Alzheimer's. Perhaps they don't these things because either the studies do not show a link or that the studies are without merit.
As far as the Young-Geier study is concerned, this is the first I have heard of it and it seems to be the only actual study this article refers to instead of simply alluding to studies or using weasel words such as "Investigators have shown...."
This website has a good rebuttal of the Young-Geier study:
http://bmartinmd.com/2008/05/young-geier-autism-study-1.html
 
In answer to "How many bona fide cases of mercury poisonings are there ?

Hydrogen Cyanide said:
Yep, they exist, and they do not look at all like autism:
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/168/2/201]
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The link says "The girls' blood mercury levels were 176 and 209 (normally < 18) µmol/L", So there is a harmless 'normal level'.

And the two girls, twins, were given the mercury by their parents. Not from vaccines, or tuna fish or light bulbs.
 
casebro said:
In answer to "How many bona fide cases of mercury poisonings are there ?



The link says "The girls' blood mercury levels were 176 and 209 (normally < 18) µmol/L", So there is a harmless 'normal level'.

And the two girls, twins, were given the mercury by their parents. Not from vaccines, or tuna fish or light bulbs.
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You did not specify from what kind of source. There are lots of other case studies on PubMed, and often from all sorts of sources. That just happens to be available online with photos of the characteristic skin color.

Here is another from there of some case studies (one is a dentist, occupational hazard):
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/176/1/59

A bunch of people inject themselves with elemental Hg (also has pictures, ewww!):
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15345347

Here is a weird one where a bunch of kids were mercury poisoned by a neighbor who made mercury filled amulets:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=10856034

There are lots more... including mercury poisoning on an ore boat, the hazards for eating seafood in several countries to the dangers of being near a gold mine. The stuff is everywhere, and the fears of the itsy bitsy teeny tiny bit that used to be in vaccines is pretty silly.
 
casebro said:
You can't eat enough fish, dissolve enough of your own fillings, inhale enough flourescent bulbs, in your whole lifetime to get poisoned.
.
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Actually you are wrong. A quick search through wikipedia shows that a child obtained mercury poisoning because of broken light bulbs. Myth busted with five seconds of research. Now get off the woo woo train.
You did not specify from what kind of source. There are lots of other case studies on PubMed, and often from all sorts of sources. That just happens to be available online with photos of the characteristic skin color.
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Im guessing "normal environment" is a codeword for moving goalposts.
There are lots more... including mercury poisoning on an ore boat, the hazards for eating seafood in several countries to the dangers of being near a gold mine. The stuff is everywhere, and the fears of the itsy bitsy teeny tiny bit that used to be in vaccines is pretty silly.
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Don't forget paint??? Mercury used to be in paint???
 
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