Recently in Autism Category

For those keeping up with the news of the autism world, it's pretty well-known that there are some folks who really believe that mercury poisoning from the MMR vaccine causes the disorder. A handful of researchers occasionally publish what they claim to be evidence for this, two of which are the father-and-son duo of Mark Geier and David Geier. A caveat of academic research, however, is that it cannot be conducted without approval of an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Here's where things are a little interesting, and where any doubts of the Geiers' legitimacy should be firmly solidified: they created their own IRB! First came the corporation, The Institute for Chronic Illnesses, and then came the committee. Seven members, three of which hold the last name of Geier (Yes, father Mark, son David, and wife/mother Anne). Sound too shady to be true? Check this out. Then this. Then an example of it in use here.

What the heck is going on here? If they want to do research, they can do research, but if they need to circumvent the system like this, they don't deserve an ounce of respect or notoriety. It's pitiful, really.

Lately I've been trying to place my finger on the pulse of the online autism advocacy community, and in the process I came across this blog: Hating Autism. The author is not someone who hates people with autism - he just really really hates the disorder. And he seems to be convinced to the greatest extent possible that the cause of autism is mercury poisoning. And of course, there are others who blog in the opposite direction, such as in Autism - Natural Variation and the aptly-named Not Mercury.

If you're not familiar with this issue, it's one of the hot topics in the "what causes autism?" debate. And by "hot," I mean "riot-inducing and lynch-mob-forming." Essentially, some people believe that the MMR vaccine that children are given early in life acts as the catalyst for autism. It can be a relatively easy conclusion to reach. Some may point out similarities between autism and a few of the neurological traits of mercury poisoning, and there is that correlation between the timing of the vaccine and the typical onset of autism symptoms. But of course we all know that correlation does not imply causation. That leaves the burden of proof on the research community.

There is a lot of literature out there in academic journals that suggests evidence pointing in both directions, although it seems that the more legitimate work tends to lean in the "it's not mercury" direction. If mercury does play a part, it's not very cut and dry. One of the complications to the "it is mercury" argument is that in places where the metal was removed from vaccines, the autism rates are continuing their upward trajectories. The question is a baffling one, and I'm going to try to peruse through as much of the research as I can to figure out what the current situation really looks like.

The problem of looking to others to summarize research is that so many people are moderately of heavily biased in one direction or another. Most of the time, you'll get one side of the story, and even if you get more than one side, you don't know whether both sides are being given full attention. But I like to do this kind of dirty work. It's fun stuff!