I know that this is more related to autism than ADHD, but many of the quacks who claim that vaccines cause autism also claim that vaccines cause ADHD, Tourettes, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Quacks in different countries have tried to link different vaccines to autism and other disorders, sometimes the quacks can't even seem to get their basic facts straight, such as when the American quacks claimed it was the preservative thimerosal, while the Europeans quacks claimed it was the MMR vaccine...which doesn't contain thimerosal.

So anyways, several researchers at McGill University in Canada decided to put both the thimerosal and MMR hypotheses to a test. Thimerosal had been removed from Canadian vaccines since 1998, and additionally the amount that an infant would recieve varied through the years due to different required numbers of vaccines. This allowed researchers to split kids into three cohorts based on when they would have recieved their vaccinations: low dose, high dose, and no dose. They found that there was no corellation between thimerosal and autism rates, and that autism diagnosis rates had in fact continued to rise after thimerosal had been removed from the vaccines: in other words, there was actually a higher prevalence of autism in the children who had not received thimerosal than those who had! MMR was a little trickier, but there was a drop in the percentage of children given the MMR vaccine in the past few years, due to the Wakefield fiasco, so they could compare diagnosis rates from years where ~98% of children were vaccinated to years when ~92% of children were vaccinated, and again, no link between vaccination rate and autism.

The abstract for the study can be found here:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1/e139
(American Academy of Pediatrics - very reputable source)

Some very good commentary from a surgical oncologist who's been following the vaccine hysteria can be found here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/07/still_more_evidence_that_vaccines_dont_c_1.php#mor e

OK, so the argument goes that these kids were still exposed to some trace quantities, or there were some vaccines left over on the shelf, or the US covertly replaced the Canadian vaccines with their own just to keep the numbers in line with the US. SOMETHING! There has to be a logical explanation for this and it can't be that mercury and MMR don't cause autism.

The most amusing of the claims ya know with people running around trying to blow things up the US and Candian govrments having nothing better to do than to secretly switch vaccines!


Although Mercury exposure is toxic and is used for vaccines, Vaccines by far are not the only thing containing this element.Here is a short list.

http://emedicine.com/EMERG/topic813.htm

Causes of elemental mercury toxicity include barometers, batteries, bronzing, calibration instruments, chlor-alki production, dental amalgams, electroplating, fingerprinting products, fluorescent and mercury lamps, infrared detectors, the jewelry industry, manometers, neon lamps, paints, paper pulp production, photography, silver and gold production, semiconductor cells, and thermometers.

The causes of inorganic mercury toxicity include antisyphilitic agents, acetaldehyde production, chemical laboratory work, cosmetics, disinfectants, explosives, embalming, fur hat processing, ink manufacturing, mercury vapor lamps, mirror silvering, the perfume industry, photography, spermicidal jellies, tattooing inks, taxidermy production, vinyl chloride production, and wood preservation.

The causes of organic mercury toxicity include antiseptics, bactericidals, embalming agents, the farming industry, fungicides, germicidal agents, insecticidal products, laundry products, diaper products, paper manufacturing, pathology products, histology products, seed preservation, and wood preservatives
.
Another route of organic mercury exposure is thimerosal, an additive preservative used in vaccines to prevent bacterial contamination. The most commonly used vaccines that contain Thimerosal are for diphtheria-tetanus-whole cell pertussis (DTP), Haemophilus influenzae (HIB), and hepatitis B.

***End Quote

Yeah, but as they say, the dose makes the poison. The amount of ethylmercury from the thimerosal in a dose of vaccine is tiny, far below the generally accepted safety levels.

Interestingly, there was a study released not too long ago showing that kids with mercury fillings were in no worse health than kids who received mercury-free dental fillings, although I don't have the source offhand and don't feel like looking for it at the moment.

Oh, one other major source of mercury is from eating fish.

And of course, there is no evidence that autistic kids have higher than average mercury levels anyways, so it's fairly pointless.

I just heard about the filling thing last week but its a bit different.

It's not the new fillings (such as kids have) it's the old fillings that might be "leaking" while the mother is pregnant. Hmm.

Boots

And of course, there is no evidence that autistic kids have higher than average mercury levels anyways, so it's fairly pointless.

Ha . . . . .I believe you may have a point going on here.

Here is an explaination of the biology behind Autism which may clear things up.

Biology of Autism explained (http://www.mattababy.org/~belmonte/Publications/Papers/98_Garreau/)

***Quote
While the most noticeable and diagnostic characteristics of autism are cognitive in nature (e.g. impaired social interaction and communication, restricted range of interests, [American Psychiatric Association, 1992], a number of motor abnormalities have also been noted, although they receive relatively little attention clinically and scientifically. For instance, autistic children are universally dyspraxic [Jones & Prior 1985], and manifest disturbances of gait [Vilensky & al. 1981] which persist, to some extent, into adulthood [Hallett & al. 1993]. Motor anomalies are clear enough that Adrien & al. [1992] found that blind raters were able to differentiate autistic children from normal children on the basis of motility and other factors appearing in home movies taken before autism was suspected. In a more recent study using a battery of tests taken from a standard neurological exam, Haas & al. [1996] found that autistic patients showed abnormalities indicative of cerebellar and parietal lobe dysfunction, but did not show significant abnormalities on tests of pyramidal motor and cranial nerve abilities. Furthermore, classical eyeblink conditioning, a hallmark of cerebellar functioning, is abnormal in autism, both in the amplitude and latency of conditioned responses and in the rate of extinction [Sears & al. 1994].***End Quote

Apparently Autism is cerebellar in nature.

Well, I would guess that there are other issues in other regions of the brain as well, but yes, it does seem very likely that the cerebellum is involved. I have no evidence, but I would not be surprised if certain frontal and prefrontal areas are also involved, given the lack of "theory of mind" involved in autism, plus broca's area given the difficulties in speaking (but not typing). Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if what they find involves multiple issues in communication between various regions, much like the striato-frontal communication disruption in ADHD, but far more extreme and far more widespread.

The difficulty with autism is that it covers a wide spread of abilities. The motor control problems are very likely cerebellum. But with the other symptoms its hard to fit all the data on high-functioning autistics, those who have no form of communication or apparent intelligence and idiot servants into the same model.

Some interesting data is out there on early detection of autism, possbily by the 6 month stage, based on the behaviour of the child. This of course puts a stop to the whole vaccine debate becase this happens at about 18 months.

Early detection doesn't rule out mercury as a cause. It is possible that the Mothers during pregenancy accumulate mercury at high enough levels to damge the fetus. There is some data linking autistic children to Mothers who eat lots of fish or had vaccination during pregnancy. Other data suggests that some people don't extrete mercury as effectively as others leading to a high concentration in their bodies.

Other data suggests that some people don't extrete mercury as effectively as others leading to a high concentration in their bodies.
Actually, what happened was that Geier&Geier did a hair sample of autistic and neurotypical kids, expecting to find that the autistic kids would have higher mercury levels. Unfortunately for the Gs, the tests reported that the autistic kids were in the normal range, but the neurotypical kids were actually higher. A normal (read: non-brain-damaged) researcher would have come to one of two conclusions:

A: Autism is unrelated to mercury
B The neurotypical kids' mercury levels were extremely high, and the lab involved was not fairly well-regarded. It is possible that the lab tests themselves were flawed, and the study should be redone or scrapped.

However, the Geiers opted for choice C: Autistic kids must have difficulty excreting mercury.

The one small tiny itty-bitty prolem with this hypothesis, though, is that chemicals are not excreted in the hair. Hair tests do not measure excretion, as urine tests do. Chemicals in the bloodstream are passively deposited in the hair roots, and thus hair tests are a passive reading of the level of a given substance in the body that bear little relation to excretion. If autistic kids had difficulty excreting mercury, the hair tests would have shown higher levels of mercury, because their inability to excrete it would lead to higher levels in the blood and body in general, and therefore higher levels in the hair.

There is some data linking autistic children to Mothers who eat lots of fish
Citation? I'm not trying to be mean or anything, just that I've never heard of this, and would like to see how they determined this.

or had vaccination during pregnancy.
Uh-uh. This recent study could just as easily apply to maternal vaccinations. Most of the children born after the removal of thimerosal would have been born to mothers who did not receive thimerosal-containing vaccines during pregnancy.

The difficulty with autism is that it covers a wide spread of abilities. The motor control problems are very likely cerebellum.
:confused: Please cite your sources. There is a great deal of research on autism and none of it points to the cerebellum as a great contributor to symptoms. Autism is a dysfunction of higher thinking that likely involves a large proportion of the cerebral cortex and parts of the midbrain. Motor control problems that sometimes occur in autistics are more likely the result of abnormalities in the corpus collosum and/or motor cortex (parietal lobe).



But with the other symptoms its hard to fit all the data on high-functioning autistics, those who have no form of communication or apparent intelligence and idiot servants into the same model.Actually, it's not. The spectrum of symptoms, nor its complexity, are the major hinderances to model formation. There are specific commonalities that characterize the disorder and it's those commonalities that provide a coherent picture.

The largest hinderance to developing causal models is the way that the dysfunctional behaviors are distributed (widely).

Some interesting data is out there on early detection of autism, possbily by the 6 month stage, based on the behaviour of the child. This of course puts a stop to the whole vaccine debate becase this happens at about 18 months.

There is some data linking autistic children to Mothers who eat lots of fish or had vaccination during pregnancy. Other data suggests that some people don't extrete mercury as effectively as others leading to a high concentration in their bodies.WHAT data? Please cite your sources.

There are extensive reviews of the literature on mercury available. Some of us have cited these review in other threads.

The bottom line: claims of mercury's involvement in these disorders are bunk.

As much as I like a good debate when it comes to health care issues I must sent aside pleasenteries to insert some common sense.

According to some things I ran over no, no no that would be ran into during a little search.

Autism:

Autism infor. host edu (http://www.unc.edu/~cory/autism-info/orgautsa.html)
***Quote:*At least 16 of every 10,000 babies is born with autism or one of its related disorders.***End Quote

This may seem high but this includes Autism and related disorders.

If this factious assumptions behind the notion of Autism being caused by vaccines MMR to be exact, should this be correct what percentages of Autism is caused by vaccines?

Even if every cause were related to this mercury in MMR (benefit of doubt) lets see if these vaccines are worth the risk. Benefit vs. risk would be a logical line of thinking.

News snipets (http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/e_20021028/oldstone1.html)
***Quote:Smallpox killed more people in the 20th century than died in all the century's wars combined.***End Quote

If it only ended there. . . . . quick death from measles infection isn't the only thing that can happen. . . death from measles itself may be seen as a blessing in light of:


Scribbs news.edu (http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/e_20021028/oldstone1.html)
***Quote:Cases of measles can be severe when the virus infects the brain, because the body's immune response can cause massive damage to the central nervous system, and about one out of every million cases results in a chronic, progressive, fatal neurological disease.

However, mortality from measles is usually much higher than this because the disease is immunosuppressive—it infects cells of the immune system—and if "opportunistic" infectious agents like Mycobacterium tuberculosis or Staphylococcus are present, the immunosuppression can lead to a secondary infection, which is often fatal. Measles mortality can be is as high as 33 percent. ***End Quote

Even some survives the initial infection they could live only long enough to go through years of struggling with the immunosuppresive disorders, or other type of infections.

I would have decided to continue vaccinating my children against MMR despite the scare however not all mothers are third generation nurses, grand-daughter of a nurse who told stories of medicine before antibiotics and enforced vaccination programs.

Not every one will do extensive research some people will believe the hype which in reality is where the real danger lies. With a 33% mortality rate and an increase change of suffering from an immunosupressive disease like lupus, rumatiod arthritis, (none of them is pretty) I think the danger of scaring people into not imunizing their children is almost criminal. Toooo many scares and we could find ourselves here . . .


isle-of-man (http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/famhist/genealgy/diseases.htm)

***Quote:
After a half century of medical and scientific progress in understanding and eradicating many diseases, it is very difficult to fully comprehend the situation in which 15% or so of children would die within their first few weeks of life and that some 30% or more would be dead by the age of 15. Today's childhood diseases would ravage a population; other diseases especially smallpox would peak and then decay only to reappear within a few years. Cholera, especially the epidemics of 1832/3 installed great fear into a population (see for example the rapid rise in Methodist membership in these years).
***End Quote

This is the furture without vaccines. . . .in case hard headnes continues here is some comparision figures added for contrast.


Measles initiave (http://www.measlesinitiative.org/technicalpubs/WEC_00201_00603_Bloom.pdf)
(PDF format)

***Quote:
Since World War II, vaccination has had a major impact on global health,
as the following list of successes shows:

• Smallpox, which had killed two million people per year until the late
1960s, was wiped out by 1979 after a massive worldwide immunization
campaign.

• The number of polio cases fell from over 300,000 per year in the 1980s
to just 2,000 in 2002.6

• Two-thirds of developing countries have eradicated neonatal tetanus.

• Since the launch of the World Health Organization’s Expanded Program
on Immunization (EPI) in 1974, the number of reported measles deaths
has dropped from 6 million to less than 1 million per year.

• Whooping cough cases have fallen from 3 million per year to less than a
quarter of a million.

• Diphtheria cases have declined from 80,000 in 1975 to less than 10,000
today.

***End Quote

Just to quell any hints of doubt . . . .of my intentions!

Institute of medicine (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2001932907_autism19.html)

***Quote
Autism is a complex developmental disorder best known for impairing a child's ability to communicate and interact with others. Recent data suggest a tenfold increase in autism rates in the past decade, although it's unclear how much of the apparent surge reflects better diagnosis.

Reports published in 2001 by the Institute of Medicine found no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, and insufficient evidence to draw conclusions about thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative added to multiple-dose vials of vaccine. Since then, enough new studies have been published to reject both theories, the panel said.

Especially convincing were a Danish study showing no difference in the rate of autism between children who got thimerosal-containing vaccines and those who did not; and a British study showing no relationship between the introduction of MMR and autism rates, or between the timing of a vaccination and the onset of autism symptoms.
***End Quote

MMR Vaccine save lives . . . .and do so safely . . . autism has nothing to do with the MMR . . . . . . . measles out breaks have to do with lack of vaccinations . . . further reading on several of these site will illuminate this as well . . . . . . . measles causes suffering, disease and death directly . . . . . therefore mis-information cause people to with hold these vaccines causes suffering, disease and death indirectly! These illness are dangerious, they kill, which is why vaccines were invented . . . .vaccines are made to prevent these diseases in the first place!



~~~*I rest my case*~~~

A part of me wonders whether the reverse could be true:

Clearly, the use of vaccines and subsequent near-eradication of once-common childhood illnesses has resulted in greatly reduced child-mortality rates. It is entirely possile that autistic children might have been more likely in the past to have died from these illnesses, possibly because they might have had more difficulty communicating that they needed medical help, or for whatever other reason. If that were the case, one hypothesis might be that part of the perceived "epidemic" of autism is perhaps nothing more than the normal birth-rate, without the child-mortality.

Of course, I'd argue that the increased diagnostic rate, viewing a collection of diverse conditions as part of a larger spectrum, is the greater cause.

children might have been more likely in the past to have died from these illnesses, possibly because they might have had more difficulty communicating that they needed medical help, or for whatever other reason. If that were the case, one hypothesis might be that part of the perceived "epidemic" of autism is perhaps nothing more than the normal birth-rate, without the child-mortality.

Interesting thought though. Some Austics can not speak and stay to them selves more so than other children so they may have become sicker before the symptoms were picked up on. I mean I remember when my children were small one of the first signs some thing was amiss was they were toooooo quiet!

My problem with this information is that human studies have been somewhat limited in this area to date, whereas there have been huge numbers of animal studies that support a link between use of certain vaccines and neurological development issues.

My take on it is more study is needed.

Having said that, it's not ususual for study animals and humans to react differently, which is why most drugs, vaccines, etc. have to go through a human trials stage too.

huge numbers of animal studies that support a link between use of certain vaccines and neurological development issues.

Surely you knew I (or some one else) would ask, what studies?


There are no scientific studies that point out the answers to important questions such as:

"Is this spouse good for me?"

Where science turns into confusion one must rely upon common sense and ask the question:

"Am I better off with or with out this spouse?"

Shall I insert same common sense notion with vaccines?

"Are we better with or with out vaccinations?"

Some times man kind makes these things harder than they have to be which is why there is wo/man! :p