Michael Wagnitz: Don't rule out mercury as a factor in autism


Letter to the editor 2/07/2008
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/letters/271425


Dear Editor: Amazing what a silly television show can do to get the
attention of the mainstream medical community.

Despite letters bordering on hysteria from the American Academy of
Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the March of Dimes, ABC
went ahead with the show "Eli Stone." The first episode was about a case
where the jury awarded a family compensation for a vaccine ingredient
(thimerosal, 50 percent organic mercury) linked to their child's autism.

Because of this show we have now seen over 1,000 headlines that say "Once
and for all, mercury does not cause autism." Who says it does?

The studies I read are saying that mercury is a neurotoxin and
causes/exacerbates neuroinflammatory disease. There are now 11 published
papers that define the underlying medical condition of autism as
neuroinflammatory disease.

The most in-depth paper, "Neuroglial activation and neuroinflammation in the
brain of patients with autism," was done at Johns Hopkins University. It was
done by analyzing brain tissue of deceased autistic patients.

One might think the most logical question would be: What is causing the
neuroinflammation? If you go to the most popular health search engine and
type in "mercury and inflammation," you will get 156 published papers to
review. Many of these papers explain the role of mercury and activation of
microglial cells in the brain. In a paper published in the Journal of
Neuroinflamation, "Microglia and neuroinflamation: a pathological
perspective," the authors define activation of microglial cells as being
synonymous with neuroinflammatory disease.

We now know that primates exposed to ethyl mercury via vaccines retain twice
as much inorganic mercury in their brains as primates exposed to equal doses
of methyl mercury. These primates were exposed to mercury levels at a rate
equal to what U.S. children received via standard childhood vaccines in
1991-2003.

Why has research in this area been stopped? Maybe someone from the National
Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can
answer this question. They seem to have billions to waste on chasing that
elusive, spontaneous, mutating autism gene.

Michael Wagnitz


Michael Wagnitz is a Madison resident with over 25 years of experience
evaluating material for mercury and other heavy metals. He serves on the
Scientific Advisory Board of the National Autism Association.

Think Autism. Think Cure. ®

http://nationalautism.org

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