You have done a great deal to discredit the validity of the prevalence trends (and convinced me to some degree as well). Why does belief suddenly play into it? Sure, I might suspect that there has been an increase although less than published, but I know very well, the data is pretty crappy so I don’t really have a strong belief either way on prevalence. Good data just isn’t available.

If you want to credibly study a possible correlation between a variable and disease or disorder, you need ALL of the following across the WHOLE time period being studied:

1) Credible data of prevalence
2) Credible data of dose
3) Credible data about confounders

I think even you doubt we have #1. We certainly don’t have #2. We don’t have #3 either.

If any of these is missing, credible analysis simply can’t be done on correlation.

I’m not really avoiding anything here.

This discussion is revolving around the many that claim that trace amounts of mercury are safe in vaccines. How did they come to that conclusion without knowing what level ethylmercury is toxic to infants?

I haven’t stated that I support thimerosal in vaccines. I don’t have strong feelings that it needs to stay in vaccines.

But I think it is you who is avoiding the issue, Swartz.

You either believe there has been an autism epidemic or you don’t. If you believe there has been an autism epidemic, that means you believe autism was rare in the 80s, and consequently, you must believe a total exposure of about 70 mcg in infancy is quite safe. It follows that a total exposure of 3 mcg must be extremely safe then.

There are no two ways about it. It doesn’t matter if you believe other things also cause autism. If autism was rare in the 80s, a total exposure of 70 mcg must be quite safe in this context.

It’s also interesting to note that a number of organization have signed articles of membership in a collaboration of sorts. These organizations include the ASA, Generation Rescue, SafeMinds, etc. Among their statements of agreement, they claim that “There is an autism epidemic.” They also have a claim that seems to indicate that only children are “affected by autism.” That is, autistic adults don’t exist (or they don’t care about autistic adults).

Clearly, these organizations are stating, by implication, that a total exposure of 70 mcg of thimerosal in infancy is quite safe when it comes to autism. There’s no way to get out of that one without undermining a key premise of their belief system.

You still haven’t addressed the problem. If you support using Thimerosal in vaccines, how are you determining what the toxicity level is?

If we’re talking about the same “thimerosal hypothesis” then the dose matters quite a bit. Maybe you’re talking about a different “thimerosal hypothesis” which I’m unaware of The “thimerosal hypothesis” I’m referring to says that an “autism epidemic” occurred due to an increase in the total thimerosal dose per child from about 70 mcg to about 180 mcg. Perhaps you’ve renounced the idea of an autism epidemic, or at least of an autism epidemic having anything to do with thimerosal?

Of course, it’s not hard to imagine why those in-vitro studies don’t translate well to real life, but that’s another way of thinking about the issue.

Of course its not. But then neither is ‘some unspecified amount that’s never been established to do anything in terms of autism causation’.

“Additionally, you’ve switched to neurological disorder, when all Dr. Poling was suggesting was that the level of mercury could result in a mito dysfunction not a neurological disorder.”

I was referring to the idea that a trace amount of thiomersal could cause autism.