In your Spin Doctor segment on autism and mercury, the study cited stated that mercury poisoning is not the cause of autism and that children with autism actually have lower mercury levels. My question is: Were they testing for METHYL mercury, which is found in fish, or ETHYL mercury, which is in vaccines? Methyl mercury cannot break the blood/brain barrier so it remains in the blood system and is eventually flushed out. Ethyl mercury, however, does break the blood/brain barrier and tends to collect in the brain, thus preventing it from being flushed out.
While there has been extensive testing on what methyl mercury does to the body, there have been few, if any, large studies done on ethyl mercury. Ethyl mercury was grandfathered into the FDA as a preservative for vaccines. There was only one test done by Ely Lilly in the 1930's, using all terminal patients. No long-term studies have been done since, to my knowledge. Until ethyl mercury is ruled out as a potential cause for the 1 in 91 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, no one can say whether mercury does not cause autism.
