Comments on: Mercury in Retrograde

By: The Wearying of the Green

The Wearying of the Green — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:37:10 +0000

[...] the need to make sure that there are jobs and housing for autistic adults. The obsessive focus on mercury and vaccines and on sniffing out alleged (and very much imagined) government conspiracies of groups [...]

By: Club 166

Club 166 — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:06:24 +0000

One thing no one’s mentioned thus far is confirmation of findings. Scientists don’t usually change their opinions of things based on one study. It’s the accumulated knowledge based on several studies.

Thus the “low mercury hair” study needs to be replicated, and then if found to be true the underlying basis for a lower level of mercury in hair needs to be investigated, and not just speculated about.

No one’s done either.

Joe

By: This Week’s Top Posts

This Week’s Top Posts — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:04:41 +0000

[...] Mercury in RetrogradeMercury is moving “back out of the picture” as a cause of autism. And it’s about time. There are many other pressing issues that should be at the center of discussions in the autism community—the possibility of a mercury-autism link has taken center stage for too long. [...]

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 02:17:41 +0000

@daedalus2u,

I’m very glad you mentioned the astrological meaning of “retrograde”; as I wrote this, I was thinking of the notion of “retrograde motion” that Ptolemaic astronomers used to account for the puzzling motion of planets like Mars.

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:18:37 +0000

Lurker, there is no data that supports the “mercury causes autism” idea.

How does the data that in some ASD individuals there is less mercury in their hair isupport the idea that too much mercury caused their ASD?

There isn’t any data that does suggest that mercury is causing problems. You have quacks selling chelation who measure tiny amounts of mercury in chelation challenge tests and then assert it is “significant”. They are lying. A few micrograms of mercury is not physiologically significant. It might be statistically significant, but so what?

I calculated the actual mercury excretion touted as “significant” in the Bradstreet paper where they measured differential excretion of mercury following chelation challenge.

http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com/2007/03/discussion-of-false-mercury-causes.html

This “significant” difference was 1.1 micrograms. Over 3 days this would be 3.3 micrograms. The amount of mercury in an ounce of tuna.

By: lurker

lurker — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:36:14 +0000

daedalus Why would those with ASD’s have so much less mercury in their hair than those without ASD’s? How is it that all the data suggesting mercury problems is to be considered as nothing? The other explanations for causation are still so incomplete and give very little explanation for how the things observed lead to the condition. There is lots to be explored for any cause. Research should be directed at anything that may reasonably be observed to be involved, especially since different causes could be interconnected. What would be a physiological cause that would be likely?

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:59:19 +0000

Lurker, the problem with the “mercury causes autism” idea is there is a complete lack of any data to support it. That includes all of the studies put out by all the proponents of the idea. None of those papers present any data that supports a conclusion that mercury causes autism.

The most likely explanation of low mercury in the hair of people with ASDs would be low exposure to mercury. Unless and until that explanation is proven untenable, it remains the most likely one. It remains more likely than highly speculative explanations with no data or physiology to support them, such as abduction by aliens and injection of mercury containing probes.

In any case the levels of mercury observed are tiny compared to levels where any symptoms of toxicity appear.

I think we should spend resources on likely causes, not on unlikely highly speculative non-physiological ones.

By: lurker

lurker — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:06:57 +0000

It seems if the government or pharmaceutical companies fund research, the ones who believe them all the time will absolve them of any lackluster procedures, but if anyone else proposes research and/or scientific ideas and observations, they are held to a strong double standard and are derided even though their efforts are in actuality reasonable. These types will only accept conclusions from the proper establishment “authorities” no matter what lack of explanations they provide.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:16:43 +0000

So what good is any government agency assigned to protect the health and well being of the citizens if they do not use a scientific method to do so?

By: Emily

Emily — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:01:33 +0000

And your evidence for this would be…? Observation? Data collection? Analysis?

I would be more inclined to say that their conclusions are conceivably driven by politics and money, especially in the case of the FDA. Of course, that’s not one of the steps of the scientific method. That’s one good reason to have non-affiliated research scientists also looking into these things. Balance is always important in science. And I think an effort to erase emotion is, too. Ironic, really.