The Age of Autism

The Huffington Post

The new book “The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic” is shaking up the autism world. Orthodox scientists and medical groups have dismissed and even ridiculed the idea that incredibly toxic ethyl mercury — still in flu shots given to infants and pregnant women — could be linked to the explosion in autism rates beginning in the 1990s, when the vaccine schedule was rapidly expanded. Just the day before the book came out this week, the CDC issued yet another flawed study that found not only was mercury safe — it actually had a protective effect against the risk of autism. This is obviously absurd, as is the fact that almost all the children in the study had received mercury-containing shots, rather than including a control group without any mercury exposure. Authors Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill — two names well-known in the autism community and editors of the blog Age of Autism (ageofautism.com), have for the first time traced the roots of autism beginning in the 1930s. What they found is electrifying and suggests the debate is about to heat up again, whether the government and medical industry like it or not.

Deirdre: What is the major point you want people to take away from your book?

Dan: That the concern about mercury and autism is far from over. We found that the medical industry and manufacturing have had a long history of the reckless use of mercury that goes back centuries, and that does include, based on our research, the rise of autism in the 1930s when ethyl mercury was first commercialized in agricultural products and in vaccines. That’s the short answer.

Mark: The other thing that we want people to embrace is contained in the title — this really is The Age of Autism. Autism is the single most devastating childhood disorder any of us have faced in our lifetime — and it has become a national health emergency. The rates of autism have gone from effectively zero before the 1930s to 1 in 100 children today, and that’s happened in the lifetime of a single individual — in just seven decades. In our book, we’ve gone back to first principles and identified the roots of the disease itself, and we place mercury exposure and new environmentally toxic products at the source of the explosion.

Deirdre: That certainly is contrary to what mainstream medicine and science is saying, which is that autism is basically a genetic disorder. Many argue that there has been no real increase, that it’s just more awareness and better diagnosis. And the courts have ruled against families that have claimed that vaccines cause autism, and just recently shut the final door on those cases.

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