The current theory being propagated is that all ASD's are nothing more than mercury poisoning. The Food and Drug Administration in the US, and the Centre for Disease Control have dismissed this, but it hasn't stopped the panic stricken parents screaming conspiracy theories. This particularly attacks a financial arrangement (supposed) between pharmaceutical companies and the FDA and the CDC, in order to retain a preservative known as either thiomersal or thimerosal which is used to preserve vaccines. Invented in 1931, the alarmists claim that this ties in with Leo Kanner's paper on Autism in 1943. To add to this, there is also a claim that in or around 1990 the amount of thiomersal was increased, leading to (supposedly) an increase in the diagnosis rate of ASD's. Also, a number of parents - particularly Fore Sam (I won't name him) - are claiming success with the use of chelation, the established treatment for mercury poisoning.

Myth Number One
The only way any credence can be given to the thiomersal theory in it's early stages is if all of Leo Kanner's subjects for his 1943 study were 12 years old or younger. For the study to get the attention it got at the time, there is no way it would have been taken seriously unless the ages of the subjects were more widespread. There had to be older subjects in Kanner's study.

Myth Number Two
The assumption is also made that Kanner's work was brand new and unprecedented. Funding for such work was much harder to get in those days, so there had to be pre-existing information. And in this case there was. Schizophrenia. Named in 1908 by Eugene Bleuler, the symptoms at that time were similar to Autism in its basic form. It would have been the variables that attracted Kanner's attention, as well as the fact that Bleuler used the word "Autism" in 1912 - 19 years before the alarmists claimed Autism was born. And even Bleuler had previous work to refer to. In 1893, Emil Kraepolin did a paper on "youth dementia". Again, the symptomatic similarities between this and Autism are stark. There is no doubt that Autism existed in 1893.

Un-diagnosable evidence of youth dementia can be traced back as far as 2000 BC in Greece.

Myth Number Three
Partly because of the similarities between the two, it wasn't unknown as recently as the 1990's for an Autistic Spectrum Disorder to be mis-diagnosed as Schizophrenia. One person I know - who isn't a doctor - made that very mistake as recently as 2003, and may still believe it now. But in the professional world this changed with the introduction of the DSM-IV. This diagnostic criteria set out to not only separate Autism from Schizophrenia, but also to take into account the work Lorna Wing had done translating the work of Hans Asperger from German to English. This led to a marked improvement in the diagnosing of ASD's. This is the true reason - in part - for the increase in diagnosed children. Not only that, but there were also parents seeking to find excuses for their bad parenting and consequently poorly behaved children, and pressure was put on psychiatrists and psychologists to diagnose an ASD (usually ADHD or Asperger's Syndrome).

Myth Number Four
In late 2006, I caught the following comment on Fore Sam's blog;

Vaccines that contain mercury have ethyl mercury. This is the same mercury that is found in our every day life (including naturally in breast milk) at higher does than vaccines. The mercury that can be especially toxic is methyl mercury. This is the mercury that the recommendations pertain to. It’s the mercury that is caused by us through oxidation and processing that we also encounter in life. Fish ingest the products of methyl mercury which is why pregnant women are advised to avoid it.
Anonymous on Fore Sam's blog on December 28, 2006

I think this says it all. It kills the thiomersal argument outright, proving that there is more than one type of mercury. Pure mercury (AKA Quicksilver) kills. Methyl mercury - whilst not as lethal can also kill, and is the reason for the development of chelation. Ethyl mercury - in small doses as indicated - is safe. It is ethyl mercury that is contained in thiomersal. Vaccines in the US apparently contain 25 micrograms of thiomersal. I don't know what percentage of the vaccine that is, but as 1 million micrograms equals one gram it would be way less than 1 percent.

Further Evidence
I'm going to use Fore Sam's son as an example here.

He never responded to his name, never slept, didn't eat, smeared feces, ate anything he could get his hands on, tried to drink water out of the gutter, bashed his head into walls, bit himself, climbed out of windows, ran into traffic, battled constipation for years, screamed ALL DAY LONG. He had battled constipation for years, screaming in pain while trying to expel baseball sized masses that were hard as a rock. This was the next thing to go away. His bowels have been mostly normal since a couple of months into chelation.
Fore Sam on Fore Sam's blog on December 26, 2006

I don't think there is any doubt. There is a severe question mark over what Fore Sam was feeding his son. Clearly his son was in pain - brought on by the constipation. Such a dominating sensory overload would have been the root cause of the behaviour that improved markedly when the chelation started. There is no doubt that there was a lot of metal in the boy's intestines, which naturally the chelation cleared. The question is who put it there? For such a severe intestinal disturbance mercury poisoning from thiomersal could not possibly be blamed. Anyone who did so would be clutching at desperate straws. There is only one other explanation - and that had to be the food the boy was consuming. Fore Sam can't blame doctors or vaccines for that. And neither can anyone else.

There is also an insinuation that by continuing to use chelation, there will be some miracle delivered - that the child will be 100 percent cured. Again - taking Fore Sam's son as an example - the boy is a preteen. He is only a couple of years away from being a teenager and hitting puberty. And yet....

Sam's facial expresion is curious. It's like a two year old learning this on a ten year old face and the expressions are exagerated, you can't help but laugh.
Fore Sam on Fore Sam's blog on December 23, 2006

A mind so far behind the body is tough enough - and far from funny. But if a parent assumes that the mind will catch up they are making a fatal mistake. When the body goes through the changes associated with puberty, the tremors of a normal child growing up can be the size of earthquakes. Now apply that to a child with the mind of a toddler. The psychological meltdown that's on it's way can not be ignored. Any parent who thinks that chelation is the magic potion that will resolve all the problems associated with ASD's is in bad need of remedial education in common sense to be brutally frank.

A Reasonable Theory
Doctor Thomas Good MD posted the following on Fore Sam's blog on May 10, 2007, and I took out a reference to mercury poisoning because I disagree that it should be included in the list of causations.

THE ORIGINS OF AUTISM
* Birth - The Autistic Child has a defective gene that is yet to be discovered.
* First few months of life - The gene is dormant, and the baby grows normally.
* A-Day - The child suffers a sensory overload, activating the dormant gene and starting the regression.
(The only way to avoid Autism is to avoid the sensory overload. Once the overload occurs, the damage is done and can not be reversed)
* Causation - Sensory overload can come from almost anywhere. Food, domestic environment, an overwhelming attack on one of the five senses, and other factors.
* Treatment - This largely depends on the disorder's level, and it's side effects and consequent sensory overloads. But above all, sensory overloads must be avoided at all costs. Bullying in the school yard can cause this, and can do additional damage to an Autistic child. Applied Behavioural Analysis is a useful tool but it does not work on low functioning Autistics. It also has limited success on other Autistics whose initial sensory overload was caused by other people's behaviour.

I think not.

Bottom Line
The fact remains that there is enough evidence available to at the very least implant reasonable doubt that thiomersal is in any way connected to Autism. The FDA and the CDC know this, and it's why they rightly ignore the alarmists. That does not in any way provide any proof that the proverbial brown paper bags are being exchanging under the table between the two authorities and the pharmaceutical companies. Or that any US politicians are involved. Conspiracy theories and childish alarmist behaviour delays the understanding of all ASD's, which is crucial for the long term future of all diagnosed subjects. Children and adults.