Fish & Foul · Dec 7, 06:30 PM

We’ve got a lousy situation here in New Hampshire, vis à vis pollution. Emissions from two coal-burning power plants, combined with contaminants from other sources, have made it necessary for the Fish and Game Department to post signs by the state’s lakes and streams warning the citizenry not to eat the fish.

In a recent editorial, the editors of the Keene Sentinel expressed their concerns about this state of affairs, and their opinions about pending legislation that would require Public Service of New Hampshire to reduce its mercury emissions by eighty percent over the next eight years. I share those concerns and support the passage of that legislation. Alas, however, the Sentinel’s editors fell prey to the same temptation that has befallen many other well-intentioned advocates for environmental safety—that of mistaking hasty conclusions for fact on the subject of autism. Here’s the letter I sent, which was published on December 5, 2005.

The assertion in the November 27 editorial, N.H. Mercury, that mercury “has been linked to autism,” is misleading. A link has been posited by several researchers, and has been trumpeted as fact by certain activists, parents who attribute their children’s autism to thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines), personal injury lawyers, promoters of products and services intended to relieve “heavy metal toxicity,” public relations professionals, and journalists. A great deal of ongoing research seeks to identify causes of autism, including investigations of genetics, birth trauma, increase in maternal age, metabolic and environmental factors. No research exists that conclusively proves that autism is a consequence of mercury toxicity. However, a 2004 Institute of Medicine review of five large epidemiological studies did conclude that there is no causal association between thimerosal and autism.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Michigan, and the Kennedy Krieger Institute recently issued a statement protesting the implication by the organization Generation Rescue that those researchers “are convinced that there is a causal connection between mercury exposure and autism risk.” They expressed concern that the organization’s publicity efforts “may actually mislead the public into thinking that the mercury-autism hypothesis has stronger support in the scientific literature than it actually does.”

Environmental protection is a noble goal. Exposure to potentially toxic substances should be minimized, and viable alternatives for mercury-based preservatives in vaccines should be developed. However, in their efforts to draw attention to environmental and public health problems, advocates and journalists should also be careful not to disseminate inaccurate information about autism.

Kathleen Seidel

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