I disagree, in a strict scientific definition, it has been hypothesized.

Postulated (accepting as true without proof, or assuming as a given) is an accurate description for many of the believers in the thimerosal-autism hypothesis. I’d suggest it’s actually become an urban legend.

However, in scientific terms it is hypothesis – and a likely flawed hypothesis when you look closely at the study that proposed it.

Postulated, yes. In the case of EtOH metabolism by Asians, would this be due to a relatively clear and understood mechanism involving genes for key enzymes? Maybe, oh I don’t know, something like ADH1B and ADH1C polymorphisms?

The idea that autistics are less able to remove toxic metals is an idea put forth by people involved with the chelation industry. The suspected SNP’s haven’t panned out. That’s not to say it’s not possible but postulation is possibly premature.

You would be much more believable if you posted on an on topic posting (better, yet actually READ what Kev wrote!), and if you provided some actual references… something like this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/en.....s=16919130

That reference was posted in the comments of Orac’s blog (see link on the left side of this page)... which has several well referenced postings that show thimerosal is not the cause of autism.

1) Ingestion vs. Injection.
The effects of any drug or toxin are determined by the amount in the bloodstream and the length of time it remains there. This is a function of how fast the dose enters the blood and how fast it leaves. When you ingest a drug, it typically enters the bloodstream much slower than when you inject it. Intravenous (in the veins) injection means that the total dose enters the bloodstream almost instantaneously. Most vaccines are administered by Intramuscular (in the muscle in your arm) injection, which means that the total dose enters the bloodstream somewhat slower. Ingestion is usually the slowest route a drug can take, and depending on the drug, much of the dose never enters the bloodstream at all.
The reason is that the body is very adept at eliminating toxins from the bloodstream that are ingested orally. To begin with, drugs take a while to be absorbed from the gut into the blood – it isn’t instantaneous like IV injection – so the amount of drug in the blood at any given time is significantly less than the total administered dose, and the body has time to start removing it before it is completely absorbed.
Furthermore, the removal system is very efficient in orally administered drugs. Why? Because drugs taken orally are absorbed from the gut wall and go directly to the liver and kidneys which filter them out or metabolize them (convert them) into different substances that are often (but not always) less toxic. Those toxins are quickly excreted in the urine or feces, and never reach the general bloodstream.
This is known as the “first pass system” and is the reason that most drugs given orally are given at significantly higher doses than they would be if they were given by IV injection. In fact, many common drugs would be lethal if the same dosage taken orally was given intravenously.
Of course, the liver and kidneys can only handle so much at any one time, so they remove what they can and the rest does make it into the general blood.
The take home message here is that a man who ingests Thimerosal is likely getting only a fraction of the dose he is ingesting, and it will enter his bloodstream at a much slower rate, so the comparison of the dose/lb of the infant versus the German man is inaccurate. In fairness, even taking those factors into account, the man most certainly received a much larger dose/lb body weight of Thimerosal than the infant, consistent with his clear adverse reaction.
2) The effects of age and genetics on drug reaction
Age affects many aspects of how drugs interact with the body. It can affect the function of the kidneys – newborn infants for example, have only about 20% of the kidney function of adults. Liver function also changes with age. Now remember how I said that the amount of drug in the blood is also dependent on how fast it leaves? If elimination by the kidneys or liver is impaired then the body is subject to higher doses for longer periods of time than someone with optimal kidney or liver function – so age cannot be ignored in determining the actual dose in the blood.
Other factors that can affect kidney or liver function are disease, the presence of other drugs (including things like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol which keep the liver and kidneys busy, and prevent them from devoting their full attention to removal of other toxins) and genetics. The reason the FDA does such long studies on new drugs is because people are genetically different – some people are missing important enzymes in their livers that are required for the elimination of specific toxins. If those people take the same amount of drug as a normal person they might die. One of the purposes of the FDA safety studies is to determine how many people in a population might have adverse effects – 1/10? 1/1000? 1/10 million? Take alcohol for example – most Asians have much less of the enzyme needed to break down and eliminate alcohol alcohol dehydrogenasein their livers. In fact they metabolize ethanol in a completely different way. One of the byproducts of this metabolism is high concentrations of the metabolite acetalaldehyde, which is responsible for flushed skin and a racing heartbeat. This is why many Asians have a lower tolerance to alcohol than Whites. Many other drugs have similar genetic specific reactions, not all of which can be easily attributed to race.
NOW, what does this have to do with autism? It has been postulated that autism sufferers belong to a subset of the population that are unable to remove toxic metals like mercury from their bodies efficiently. Thimerosal contains mercury; ironically much more mercury is administered by vaccines than is recommended by the WHO to be consumed by children or childbearing women from fish. Perhaps many children are able to eliminate the mercury from their bodies, and suffer no ill-effects. But if some segment of the population cannot efficiently eliminate the mercury, those people would suffer neurological effects.
3) The developing brain
Finally let’s think about the developing brain – the brains of infants and children are still developing at a rapid rate. The brains of children are in a constant state of “remodeling” in which neurons are reorganizing their connections with other neurons. Rapid growth of cells and changes in molecular signaling involves reproduction of DNA molecules at rates far higher than in an adult.
Exactly how mercury interferes with the brain is not well understood, and what is happening in the autistic brain is perhaps even less understood, but here is what is suspected. We do know that the brain is damaged by mercury – this is uncontested. It is thought that mercury is doing this in a number of ways: interfering directly with the actions of neurotransmitters, interfering with the effects of growth signals that guide the reorganization of the neurons in the brain, and interfering with methylation of DNA, which is important in turning genes on and off. Presumably mercury interferes with one or all of these processes – since the processes are occurring at a much more rapid rate in children, and result in permanent changes to the brain, the effects of mercury on the brain are different in children than adults, and are much more permanent. Does this explain autism? Probably not entirely, but it does explain why mercury exposure in children may result in profoundly different effects than those seen in adults.
It also just seems like something to be aware of. And I look at it this way – there is absolutely no reason for vaccines, or any other medications to be preserved with Thimerosal – EXCEPT COST. Pharmaceutical companies use it so they can package multiple doses of vaccine in a single vial. I imagine they would say that this is an essential cost-reduction that is passed onto the consumer, and particularly important in making widespread vaccination available in third world countries but I would be suspicious. Drug companies are always thinking about the bottom line, and it’s not because they want to pass the cost savings onto you and me.
4) DDT and PCB’s
Toxicity by mercury or any other substance cannot be passed on genetically. The only disorders that can be passed on to future generations are those that are present at birth, and caused by a defect in the genetic makeup of the individual. Exposures to environmental toxins do not change the essential genetic makeup of a person that is passed on to children. Keep in mind however, individuals who cannot excrete toxic metals because they genetically lack the appropriate mechanism, could possibly pass that same genetic flaw onto their children, making them more sensitive to mercury exposure as well.
Another note – DDT and PCB’s are thought to have a synergistic effect with mercury, meaning that people who are exposed to high levels of DDT and PCB’s may be more sensitive to mercury. These substances are also thought to be “endocrine disrupters” meaning that they imitate natural hormones like estrogen and testosterone but don’t function. Thus they fit into hormone receptors and block the response of real hormones. In other words, they turn off the hormone system and as you can imagine that causes all sorts of problems.
No one seems to know exactly why boys are more susceptible to autism than girls, but it appears that boys are also more likely to be affected by mercury poisoning as well – some people argue this is because males are more sensitive to oxidative stress, particularly at a young age. This makes some sense to me, because I have read that estrogen often has protective effects against oxidative cellular damage.

‘Mercury’ Dad’ is someone we know. He didn’t always post under that name and believe me, as you can see, he gives as good as he gets.

Yes, in the doses commonly found in vaccines.

Clearly a Stanford education is overrated.

Second, do you think there might be any difference between ingesting and INJECTING mercury.

Yes, I’d suggest ingestion of mercury is probably worse on many levels because of what it could do to other organs on its way through the body.

Thirdly, is it plausible that a one week old would be a touch more sensitive to a toxic substance than some grown-up, who, by the way, didn’t exactly have no reaction?

Well, there is the pesky “man takes a thousand times more per mercury per kilogram” question to answer? If mercury is so awful in microgram-level doses, wouldn’t you think it would be absurd in quantities as “large” as the one this man ingested?

The only part of your post that made any sense was the end: he recovered!

“All neurological symptoms were resolved in 46 days.” Wait, aren’t you all the morons who say that if mercury were involved, it would be permanent damage?

No thanks to the chelation therapy you espouse.

Your blog is getting very stale, mate, I’m sure a little opposition posting will ratchet up the replies.

Did I mention you are an idiot??

Let’s get real, JB. You’re not a scientist. You’re a venture capitalist – basically, you’re job is to gamble money on start-up companies and hope you see a return on investment. You’re one step above stock hawkers and the guy picking horses at the track.

So please, do not show up with your smug sense of superiority and try to convince us that because you have a Stanford degree and a few bucks that you know more than the rest of us. Because you don’t.

You might convince some people with your “I’m just a concerned parent looking for answers” line, but I’ve been around the block long enough to know when something smells fishy. At some point, I’d guess, the real truth about the “mercury militia” will be revealed and the answers will be far more surprising than any of us originally thought.

And by the way…Scientology?