On Hilleman, Mercury, and Autism

[somehedgehog]

The other night I was reading through some old Economists before recycling them, and found an obituary of Dr. Maurice Hilleman. (The Economist runs a very interesting obit every week, usually of someone fascinating and important that you've never actually heard of. I highly recommend them

Comments

[coraline]

more info on thimerosal etc. including the information that surprised me. i thought thimerosal had actually been removed from vaccines by now, but according to this site (which is admittedly biased, but i think is accurate on this):
While many doctors continue to claim thimerosal has been removed from vaccines given to children, a closer look would show otherwise. If following today’s government recommendations, a child has received more than 30 vaccinations, a dramatic increase from just over a decade ago. Vaccine makers were never ordered to remove thimerosal, rather encouraged.

[minkrose]

I'd be interested to talk to my mother about this - she's an occupational therapist and works with preschoolers and also helps to diagnose the ones who need extra help. She does a lot of work with generally disabled kids, and deals with ADHD, Autism and Asperger's as well (all things that my family about waaaaay before the media boom on the subject).

I had no idea this could even be part of it and is definitely something that should not be ignored.

As for college and schizophrenia... :grin: I dunno, the link may be stronger than we think! (mostly kidding; school certainly makes me crazy)

[cos]

Is this post friends-locked for a reason? If it were public I'd link to it.

[reverendj]

I still won't believe the autism-mercury link is valid and here's why. Millions of people (if not everyone in the US) got the vaccine while the thimersol perservitive was in use, and the rates of Autism were unaffected. Also, was there direct connection to the 87 times exposure rate and the shot, or meerly coincidence? The problem comes down to, there isn't enough research, but banning vaccines with that perservitive right now would do way more harm then good.

He was, apparently, goddamn good at what he did, and frankly kind of stunned that he didn't develop an AIDS vaccine in his lifetime.

Just a quick bit on AIDS vaccine, people seem not to understand how rapidly it mutates. Think of it this way, if the flu was a blade of grass (only a few leaves) AIDS would be a 300 year old oak tree, with branches all over the place. AIDS can become drug resistant in 1 missed dose! The flu vaccine need to be redone every year because of mutations, image having to make one every 5 days.

[somehedgehog]

I'm not saying the autism mercury link exists, merely that the possibility needs to be examined

[tressum]

Actually, the rates of Autism have increased. That's part of the growing concern of the link between Autism and Mercury/Thimersol