An excerpt from New York Times: And then suddenly in June 1999, during a visit to the Food and Drug Administration, a squall appeared on the horizon of Halsey's confidence. Halsey attended a meeting to discuss thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that at the time was being used in several vaccines -- including the hepatitis B shot that Halsey had fought so hard to have administered to American babies. By the time the dust kicked up in that meeting had settled, Halsey would be forced to reckon with the hypothesis that thimerosal had damaged the brains of immunized infants and may have contributed to the unexplained explosion in the number of cases of autism being diagnosed in children. URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/magazine/10AUTISM.html
Mild autism, in my eyes, is a blessing. I have it and it helps me out imensely with intellectual persuits. Severe autism, the kind where the children never develop speach and view others as objects and not people, on the other hand causes far too many problems than its worth.
One does not have to have autism to improve intellectual capabilities. Simple addition of foods with high Choline and DHA content would do just as good. If autism is an environmentally induced change after birth, may be there are solutions out there...for severe cases....
