Left Brain Right Brain

Autism is Mercury poisoning because:

The symptoms match so closely. Well, thats what the regular claim of the ‘no mercury’ crowd is. So lets see. Mercurysafety.co.uk lists the clinical symptoms of Mercury poisoning as:

Low Dose Exposure

• Erethism (nervousness, irritability, mood instability, blushing)
• Tremor
• Personality change
• Suicidal tendency
• Paraesthesia
• Impaired hearing
• Speech disorders
• Visual disturbance
• Abnormal reflexes
• Disturbed gait
• Gingivitis (inflammation of the gums)
• Impaired nerve conduction
• Renal damage
• Adverse outcome of pregnancy
• Infertility
• Pneumonitis (lung disease)
• Glioblastoma (brain cancer)
• Immune system dysfunction

High Dose Exposure

• Gastroenteritis (stomach upset)
• Mouth pain
• Abdominal pain
• Vomiting
• Excessive salivation
• Anuria (urine production stops)
• Uraemia (urine products appearing in the blood)
• Nephritis (kidney disease leading to kidney failure)
• Anorexia (lack of appetite)
• Ataxia (difficulty in moving)

Now I have to say immediately that this sounds nothing like the autistics (mainly kids) that I’ve met, including my daughter. There may be a case for arguing ‘speech disorder’ and/or ‘visual disturbance’ but even then you’d be stretching it. By contrast lets have a look at the diagnostic criteria for ASD.

A. Abnormal or impaired development is evident before the age of 3 years in at least one of the following areas:

(1) receptive or expressive language as used in social communication;

(2) the development of selective social attachments or of reciprocal social interaction;

(3) functional or symbolic play.

B. A total of at least six symptoms/signs from (1), (2), and (3) below must be present, with at least two from (1) and at

least one from each of (2) and (3):

(1) Qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interaction are manifest in at least two of the following areas:

(a) failure adequately to use eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gesture to regulate social interaction;

(b) failure to develop (in a manner appropriate to mental age, and despite ample opportunities) peer relationships that

involve a mutual sharing of interests, activities, and emotions;

(c) lack of socio-emotional reciprocity as shown by an impaired or deviant response to other people’s emotions; or lack of modulation of behaviour according to social context; or a weak integration of social, emotional, and communicative behaviours;

(d) lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g. a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out to other people objects of interest to the individual).

(2) Qualitative abnormalities in communication are manifest in at least one of the following areas:

(a) a delay in, or total lack of, development of spoken language that is not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through the use of gesture or mime as an alternative mode of communication (often preceded by a lack of communicative babbling)

(b) relative failure to initiate or sustain conversational interchange (at whatever level of language skills is present), in which there is reciprocal responsiveness to the communications of the other person.

(c) stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic use of words or phrases;

(d) lack of varied spontaneous make-believe or (when young) social imitative play.

(3) Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interests, and activities are manifest in at least one of the following areas:

(a) an encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that are abnormal in content or focus; or one or more interests that are abnormal in their intensity and circumscribed nature, though not in their content or focus;

(b) apparently compulsive adherence to specific, non-functional routines or rituals;

(c) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms that involve either hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole body movements;

(d) preoccupations with part-objects or non-functional elements of play materials (such as their odour, the feel of their surface, or the noise or vibration that they generate).

Now do these two things look even vaguely similar to you?

Autism started to be discovered at the same time as mercury/thimerosal was used in vaccines.

Proponents of the autism/thimerosal/mercury link say that autism and mercury became known at the same time – that the first cases of autism were diagnosed immediately after thimerosal was added to vaccines.

The dramatic rise in autism rates correlates with the increase in mercury doses. Thimerosal was first marketed in the mid 1930’s and autism was first described as a new never before seen disorder in 1943, in children born in the 1930’s.

No Mercury

However, its simply not true. There have been numerous reports that describe autistic people going back to Victorian Britain. The only thing that differs in these cases its the actual label of autism but there were certainly autistics long before either dental amalgams came into widespread use or vaccines were being used at all.

I also have anecdotal evidence of my own. 2 members of my family both born between 1910 and 1920 were diagnosed AS in the 90’s. However, they’d been the way they were since birth my grandparents claim – long before thimerosal was ever used in vaccines.

Autism cannot be genetically based because you cannot have a ‘genetic epidemic’

A very misleading argument as it presupposes the idea of an autism epidemic. It also supposes that even if there is an autism epidemic that mercury is the cause.

So, is there an autism epidemic? No. No Gvmt has declared epidemic status for autism at all. The phrase is simply part of an increasingly shrill demonisation of autism in increasingly disrespectful and shameful terms. Other phrases coined include ‘autism tsunami’ (distastefully coined after the events of last Boxing Day), the ‘hell’ of autism ‘autism is our enemy’ and many, many more.

In fact, as is usually the case in situations like this, the real reason is misunderstanding of stats:

The reason why some states show an “almost infinite” increase is that when you increase from zero to 100 the increase is “almost infinite” One does not measure a change from zero in percentage. If the change is from 2 to 100, one can say the number has gone up 50 times.

AutismDiva

Proponents of the ‘autism epidemic’ tout a figure of 1 in 166 for prevalence of autism. This figure is entirely bogus.

There has been no autism epidemic, whether or not there has been an increase at all is debatable.

AutismDiva

The reason there is an apparent increase in ASD is because of two things – better training allowing people to ‘spot’ ASD and more places one can get an official diagnosis:

Variation in the administrative prevalence of ASD is associated with education-related spending, which may be associated with better-trained educational staff who can recognize the problem, and more and better trained in-school specialists who can provide screening. It is also associated with the availability of health care resources. Increased access to pediatricians and school-based health centers may lead to improved recognition of ASD. Interstate variability in the identification of ASD should be taken into account when interpreting the results of prevalence studies based on administrative data and the associated system characteristics taken into account by policy makers working to improve the recognition of ASD.

David S. Mandell, ScD; Raymond Palmer, PhD

The incidence of research-identified autism increased in Olmsted County from 1976 to 1997, with the increase occurring among young children after the introduction of broader, more precise diagnostic criteria, increased availability of services, and increased awareness of autism. Although it is possible that unidentified environmental factors have contributed to an increase in autism, the timing of the increase suggests that it may be due to improved awareness, changes in diagnostic criteria, and availability of services, leading to identification of previously unrecognized young children with autism.

William J. Barbaresi, MD; Slavica K. Katusic, MD; Robert C. Colligan, PhD; Amy L. Weaver, MS; Steven J. Jacobsen, MD, PhD

federal and state administrative changes in policy and law favoring better identification and reporting of autism are likely contributing factors to the prevalence increases and may imply that autism spectrum disorder has been underdiagnosed in the past.

James G. Gurney, PhD; Melissa S. Fritz, MPH; Kirsten K. Ness, MPH; Phillip Sievers, MA; Craig J. Newschaffer, PhD; Elsa G. Shapiro, PhD

But surely the autism/thimerosal crowd have some stats of their own to counter these? Well, no they don’t. What they have (so they claim) is an absence of facts. A bizarre piece of ‘scientific’ reasoning that apparently ignores a basic precept of science: absence of proof is not proof of absence.

If the epidemic is truly an artifact of poor diagnosis, then where are all the 20-year-old autistics?

Boyd Haley

Its a shoddy piece of ‘logic’ repeated by David Kirby in Evidence of Harm. In fact, Haley knows very well where a lot of adult autistics are because he incurred their and their families wrath when he referred to autism as ‘Mad Child Disease‘. In the subsequent uproar that followed Haley was forced to confront the reality of adult autistics. Amusingly he also claimed he was using MAD as an acronym – Mercury Acquired Disease – obviously a better scientist than linguist he failed to spot that when lengthened out his phrase would read ‘mercury acquired disease child disease’. And in fact, he’s a pretty rubbish scientist as well.

Michelle Dawson also had something very pertinent to add to the ‘hidden hordes’ scenario:

Mr Kirby (author of Evidence of Harm who swallowed Boyd Haley’s thesis hook line and sinker) deploys the “hidden hordes” to express his disbelief in the possibility that there is no autism epidemic. Were numbers of autistics steady over the years, he argues, America would be clogged with aging hopeless autistics gruesomely burdening society. Mr Kirby cannot find us (I’m one of his “hidden hordes”) how and where he expects (doomed and confined to institutions), so he denies we exist. Szatmari et al (1989) suggests that Mr Kirby should look for his hordes in university records. In a follow-up of autistics diagnosed as children before 1970, 7 of 16 had university degrees (one was an MBA).

Michelle Dawson

Lots of studies prove a link between autism and mercury and there are none to disprove it.

Wrong on both counts. There are a few studies that suggest there may be correlation but none – none – that suggest causation at all. You can read a comprehensive review of the literature at Pediatrics online. By contrast only one study has been done which showed a link and this was shown to have flaws in methodology so severe that:

the Geiers have used shoddy study methodology and also engaged in data collection irregularities, drawing a rebuke from the CDC and suspension of Dr. Geier’s IRB approval from Kaiser-Permanente.

Orac Knows.

The Geiers in the course of their ‘investigation’attempted to compromise the confidentiality of patients on the CDC database. Nice going guys.

Of course, these studies that fail to show a link are pounced on and traduced as being produced by ‘shills’ in the pay of big Pharmaceutical companies. These same people though fail to mention that David Geier, one of the co-authors of the woeful study referenced above, works for MedCon – a company that helps vaccine injury claimants to obtain money from both the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and through civil litigation. Coincidently, Geier senior made (makes?) a good living on the side as a ‘professional witness’. Although as I’ve noted before – he’s not very well respected by either the judiciary or the medical systems in the US.

This point about correlation being different than causation is important to understand: On Orac’s blog Kaethe Douglass commented:

“The fact that Iowa’s 700 percent increase in autism began in the 1990s, right after more and more vaccines were added to the children’s vaccine schedules, is solid evidence alone,” says state Sen. Ken Veenstra. But Veenstra is wrong. That isn’t evidence. That isn’t anything but coincidence. The 1990s also saw a sharp increase in the use of car seats for children, but no one is blaming them. A 700 percent increase in autism, or any other diagnosis, is much more likely to indicate a growing awareness of a possible diagnosis, rather than an actual increase in patients suffering particular symptoms. And if Veenstra cared to do a little bit of research, he would see that the less specific diagnosis of “mental retardation” dropped as sharply as autism increased.

If people want to research possible causes of their kids autism then thats entirely up to them – I did it so I’m in no position to judge these efforts. But it behooves the researcher in question to apply scientific criteria to scientific data. Its no good extracting the bits that suit your argument and discarding the bits that don’t.

edit: Just noticed AutismDivas has made a very similar post to this – sorry AD!

Let’s start off with a basic assumption.

You love your kids. I love mine.

A lot of you don’t understand where Kathleen Seidel is coming from, whereas I sometimes can’t understand where you’re coming from. I read posts on the EoH list that say you want to test Kathleen’s kids and I wonder at how you could possibly be so insensitive. I’m sure you often wonder how I, or Kathleen or anyone else on our side of the debate can be so insensitive. I visit other websites where you have all descended en masse and wonder at your behaviour – anyone who disagrees with you is attacked in highly personal ways. And to what end? How does that advance your position?

I’ve received hate mail from some of you which is both highly personal and highly inaccurate. Some of you have stooped so low as to personally attack my daughter, a five year old autistic girl, in words so personal I can’t bear to repeat them. According to some of you, I flit around various websites under a variety of assumed names for reasons that are left unexplained and on evidence that to anyone who makes their living on the web, is naive and technically incompetent. I have also heard descriptions of some of the people I think of as cohorts that verge on the libelous. I really, truly wonder what exactly you get out of this behaviour?

Now, I can’t speak for Kathleen or anyone else but for myself I think you really need to take a long hard look at your behaviour as a group. As individuals I’m sure most of you are decent people – indeed, I have received approaching 20 emails from various members of the EoH lists that apologise for the way I, or Kathleen, or Camille, or anyone else has been portrayed. Some of these people say they can see my/our position and respect me/us for it. However, it seems that the mob still holds sway on EoH itself.

I don’t believe that autism is mercury poisoning. Generation Rescue and the few people who stick to that error both in the book and on the EoH list are simply wrong. This is my main gripe with the book and with a lot of you.

I believe that some of your kids have been mercury poisoned – you say you have tests that prove it and I have no particular reason to disbelieve what you say – and that is a bad thing. I also think that the CDC in your country should release their data. Further I think there needs to be an internationally funded, independent body set up to look at rates of prevalence across the entire world. It would take time but it is badly needed in my opinion. I don’t agree with the opinion that autism is an epidemic and I object strenuously to my daughter and people like her, who have definitely not been metal poisoned being characterised in this way.

I think (sadly) that the majority of your kids who are metal poisoned have been misdiagnosed as autistic. I think that if there is an increase in prevalence then this will be one of the reasons. I also think that there will come a time when you, as a group, will have to face the fact that your kids are either not autistic and are metal poisoned, or autistic and therefore almost certainly won’t react well to treatments such as Chelation. I don’t know any of you and you don’t know me but what I do know is that autistic kids need early intervention and that the best type of intervention you can give them is love, acceptance and encouragement. Your autistic kids won’t always be kids. They will grow into teenagers and then adults. And they will still be autistic. Do you really want them to grow up feeling guilty and ashamed of who they are? Look at the examples of Temple Grandin and Donna Williams who were both diagnosed as low functioning autistics. See what they are now. Strong, independent, forthright people. Read some of the library articles at autistics.org. A lot of the contributors there were also diagnosed as low functioning as kids. But kids grow up and develop. Can you say you were intellectually at your best as a 3 year old? Did you communicate as well as a 20 year old?

I don’t want to go on being angry with a group of people I don’t really know but neither do I want my daughter to grow up characterised only by negative assumptions about who she is and how she got that way. Please, buy as many copies of Evidence of Harm as you like, but don’t let one book that only tells one side of the story distract you from the truth that autism is not solely mercury poisoning. Don’t let your zeal to find personal answers obstruct autistics who were never metal poisoned from the legitimacy of their condition, or their well meaning parents efforts to support their needs as they see them.

Autism is mercury poisoning. So says Generation Rescue and a chatroom full of convinced parents. I feel I’ve shown conclusively the fallacy in that position.

Much more ambiguous is the belief that mercury could trigger autism. There does seem to be evidence that increased rates of environmental agents might have led some children to become ill. What is still up in the air for me personally is – is this illness really autism? How many of these children are there? What were the exact circumstances of their onset? Unfortunately, due to the paucity of data on these issues its impossible, or next to impossible, to answer any of them with any degree of accuracy. Not that that seems to have stopped a sizable proportion of hysterics leaping to conclusions. And not that that seems to have stopped the burgeoning autism money-making-machine in the guise of Generation Rescue and David Kirby cashing in on this state of ignorance. Those of us who question are set upon and misrepresented and in the meantime we have to put up with hearing other parents of autistics and various hacks and quacks describe our kids as sub-normal, dead inside, in a black hole, disappeared, missing, part of a plague, part of an epidemic, a parents worst nightmare, a living hell, a disaster and various other niceties. I wonder what members of other minority groups would be happy hearing themselves described in such a way?

Anyway, climbing off my soapbox, it struck me that if mercury (and particularly mercury in vaccines) was such a high causer of autism then where are all the girls?

The gender segregation of autism shows boys are 4 times as likely to be autistic as girls. There are no clear evidential paths that can account for this yet and bearing this in mind, it seems puzzling that mercury could be used as a scapegoat for all incidences of autism as claimed by Generation Rescue and its proponents. Or could it? Does mercury affect boys more than girls?

It’s difficult to find a lot of data on this but everything I’ve found so far indicates the gender plays no role in mercury poisoning. For example, an eMedicine study into the Minamata Bay incident (a factory discharged inorganic mercury into the water), researchers concluded:

Sex: No gender predisposition has been identified clearly.

David A Olson, MD, Consulting Staff, Department of Neurology, Dekalb Medical Center.

And from a separate article in the HSE:

n the U.S.: The 1998 annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ toxic exposure surveillance system noted 4,039 exposures to mercury. Of these, 1,039 were in children younger than 6 years, and 1,385 were older than 19 years. Overall, 68 patients were reported to have moderate effects, 12 patients had major effects, and 3 patients died as a result of mercury exposure. There is no scientific evidence that demonstrates any difference in outcome following exposure to mercury that is attributable to gender.

Barry Diner, MD, Barry Brenner, MD, PhD.

That’s all I can find. There may be more but if there is I couldn’t find it. Seems pretty clear cut though – there’s no gender favouring from mercury. And bearing that in mind, how do we account for all the autistic boys? Where are all the girls?

Another first class review of Evidence of Harm, this time from Debunkers.

Cutting stright to the chase, the reviewer exposes the fallacy of Kirby’s book:

…Kirby’s Brockovich-esque page-turner, featuring a group of parents of autistic children as David and big pharma/big government bureaucrats as Goliath, must be taken for what it is, a story of parental love and determination – and not for what it isn’t, an instructional and unbiased medical text.

No one doubts that the ‘mercury is autism/causes autism’ crowd love their children (although I and many other parents of autistics who don’t belive the connection exists have been openly accused by these same people of abusing our kids by not chelating them, have had these people offering to start collections to pay for chelation of our children and have been told we will be going to hell as we are terrible parents.) and want the best for them. Its simply unfortunate that books like Kirby’s peddle their poor science in such a well written way – its the ultimate in spin, if the science doesn’t exist, present anecdotal evidence and present it in a way calculated to inflame their target market. All style, no substance.

As the reviewer also points out there have been poorly researched conspiracy theories regarding autism and vaccines going back to the 1980’s. One by one they’ve crumbled into nothing as will this one regarding Thimerosal. Of course I doubt any of the parents who’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ‘treating’ their childs autism will be in any position when the next big boogeyman (which wil apparently be Aluminium) raises its head – they’ll be too busy trying to recoup all the money they laid out in false cures. You have to shake your head in despair at the mentality of anyone who swears that a ‘cure’ exists and then goes on to prove it by needing $500,000 worth of treatment. At some point you would’ve thought they would’ve noticed that the ‘cure’ doesn’t work at all – except in the instances of children who are mercury posisoned. Newsflash: if it worked for your child, then they weren’t autistic, they were mercury poisoned. If it continues not to work after half a million dollars worth of treatment thats because your child is autistic and chelation doesn’t cure autism. I wonder – when this mercury conspiracy theory falls apart at the seams, will Kirby refund all these people he’s profited from? I doubt it.

The reviwer also points out the sad fact about followers of Kirby – they ignore valid science as it disagree’s with their case:

Regrettably, a book written instead on the data presented at Vanderbilt by CDC pediatrician and epidemiologist Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp (whose study of autism prevalence trends indicates that the “epidemic” may be attributable to better and broader diagnostic criteria) would probably sit on bookstore shelves gathering dust. As we all know, cries of “the sky is falling!” turn far more heads than “all’s well.

As I’ve documented previously, the state of the science behind the ‘mercury is/cause autism’ theory is frighteningly inept. The holy trinity of Geier, Geier and Wakefield – all darlings of the lucrative speaker circuit in the US have been either laughed out of their own country (Wakefield) or disallowed from being an expert witness in trials involving vaccines due to their ignorance of the subject (Geier senior) or not actually be a Doctor at all (Geier junior).

The reviwer is also spot on when it comes to how those of us who don’t believe in the connection get treated:

Those who have fought against the demonizing of thimerosal have to put up with absurd accusations of being industry shills. In actuality, many of those who are fighting against the fear – some of them parents of autistic children themselves – strive to make clear the value of vaccinations.

I personally have been accused of being a bad parent, of being a liar, of being an idiot, of being on the payroll of vaccine manufacturers – one email even accused me of being ‘in league with Satan’ and quoted Revalations at me! Why? Because I follow the science, not the conspiracy theory. And why do I do that? Because I value the health of my child and I’d rather find an intervention that worked than a ‘cure’ that never will.

Overview of Wakefield’s Contribution To Science

Wakefiled was one of 13 authors of a paper published in The Lancet alledging a connection between MMR and autism. In fact, there were only 12 people studied, 9 of whom were autisitc – it seemed Wakefiled made the schoolboy error of deciding on his conclusions and working backwards to find his ‘culprit’.

On the question of these 12 subjcts, it later transpired that some of the 12 were not randomly selected but supplied to Dr Wakefield by a firm of lawyers acting for the parents who believed their kids were ‘made’ autistic by the vaccine. Wakefield was paid about £50,000 for his work and was lined up for lots more as a paid expert witness when legal action against the Pharma’s swung into action. As Ratbags say:

Put bluntly, Wakefield was paid to find a certain result (which matched his beliefs anyway) and was going to get a lot more money if he found it.

Shortly afterwards 10 of the 13 authors of the original report authors issued a statement saying that the paper was not evidence of a connection between MMR vaccine and autism and The Lancet now say they would never have published the paper at all if they’d known about Wakefields payments..

One of the key points that advocates of the ‘autism is mercury poisoning/mercury causes autism’ theory often cite in defence of their theory is that autism wasn’t diagnosed until Mercury started to be used in vaccines. Shortly after it was, they say, autism started to be diagnosed.

Pretty impressive eh? Well, no. Not really. Leaving aside the fact that citing this as evidence is akin to saying that breathing causes ear infections because I never got an ear infection until after I started breathing, there’s very compelling (and fascinating) evidence to indicate that autistics have been with us since the Victorian era (early 1800’s).

In an absorbing post on the Wisconsin Medical Society site, Dr Darold A. Treffert shows how people with ‘symptoms’ close to what we would consider autism today were studied by Dr J. Landon Down in 1887.

In an 1887 book entitled ‘On Some of the Mental Affections of Childhood and Youth’ J. Landon Down, M.D. published ‘The Lettsomian Lectures delivered before the Medical Society of London in 1887 together with other papers.’ It was there he found ‘a convenient place to describe an interesting class of cases for which the term ‘idiots savants’ has been given, and of which a considerable number have come under my observation. This name has been applied to children who, while feeble-minded, exhibit special faculties which are capable of being cultivated to a very great extent.’ He then describes a number of cases of children with the artistic, musical and numerical skills that have so regularly been described in by other observers, including myself, this past 117 years (Treffert, 2000). He also keenly pointed out that ‘extraordinary memory’ was linked with the special abilities in the savant, a finding reported consistently in all of the cases documented in the literature in the many years since that first description. One of his patients, for example, had memorized large portions of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and could repeat them back verbatim.

Leaving aside Dr Landon Down’s awful labelling of ‘idiot savants’ these people sounds autistic to Dr Treffert.

Intriguingly, Dr Landon Down (who is responsible for defining Downs Syndrome) even went so far as to apply a diagnosis of ‘developmental’ disorder in an astonishingly modern take on the issue.

In these children the early months of childhood were uneventful and “intelligence dawned in the accustomed way.” But later, around age six or so, ” a change took place in that the child’s look had lost its wonted brightness; it took less notice of those around it; many of its movements became rhythmical and automatic.” There was “cessation of increasing intelligence”, deferred speech and “lessened responsiveness to all the endearments of its friends.” Dr. Down writes “I have had many examples of children who had spoken well and with understanding, but who lost speech at the period of the second dentition, and had also suspension of mental growth.” Dr. Down provides several examples. One was a boy who “attracted no particular attention during the first six years of life” but then “during the period of second dentition” suddenly lost speech. “He heard everything that was said, but never replied to a question.” This child did gradually regain some speech but “afterwards always spoke of himself in the third person.” The other case example was that of two brothers who also “both lost speech at the period of second dentition.”

Dr Treffert theorises that these children were kids who today would be disgnosed with ‘late onset’ autism:

Autistic Disorder, while not named such until 1943, has existed for the same long time as other forms of developmental disorder and mental retardation. It is not a new disorder.

So where does this leave the ‘mercury causes autism because they happened at the same time’ arguement? I’d urge them to read the list of symptoms Dr Landon Down categorised in 1887:

world of their own,” talking in the “third person,” being in a “dreamland,””echolalia,””self-contained and self-absorbed,” “automatic and rhythmical movements,” a countenance and “repose of brightness and intelligence,” lack of “physical features” of retardation, “no response in words,”

None of this is proof in the scientific sense but to me its simply more evidence that autism has been around much longer than people think and that the ‘mercury/autism’ link is simply wrong. For your amusement, I post a link to a story about a parent-led group similar in nature to the ‘mercury/autism’ group who belive that plastic cups cause autism. Seriously, you couldn’t make it up.