According to kevin :
To say "There have not been scientific test..." about anything related
to mercury and autisim is about the biggest understatement I have seen
this week. The supposed connection betweeen mercury and autism has been
studied extensively, both in the US and around the world.

It is telling when someone tosses out one of these anecdotal tidbits as
if it means something, when there has been a debate that going on for
years, decades of research, and millions of dollars sunk into both
small and large studies. Oh, but your little anecdote hasn't been
studied you say, so I guess that just wipes the whole slate clean and
we can just forget all the studies and start the discussion fresh
again.

Well... I was just listening the other day to a discussion about the
major increases in autism that supposedly everybody is seeing worldwide
and is prompting such studies.

Some facts:

- The rise in autism in the US appears to be roughly
balanced by a _decrease_ in attention deficit disorders.

- The rest of the world is in fact _not_ seeing a big jump in autism
rates, for the most part they're relying on US numbers, because few
countries have that level of monitoring. Those that do, aren't seeing
anywhere near as big a jump, if at all.

- It's to a school (or school system's) financial advantage to have
a child declared autistic rather than ADD/ADHD because of US
state/federal school funding programmes.

While autism has a very exacting definition, it appears that many of
these children are being declared autistic by people who do not have
the credentials/experience to evaluate it properly.

Thus there is now doubt about the whole statistical basis of the
phenomena, and it's rippling all over the place.

The comment was that if a child was declared autistic by school
sponsored evaluation that they should get a second opinion from a
professional who specializes in autism.

While misdiagnosing a child with autism instead of an attention
deficit disorder benefits the school financially, it means that
it's not in the best interests of the child, because they get
the wrong treatment.
--
Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.