Blood mercury levels not higher in autistic kids
A new study showed that blood mercury levels in children diagnosed as autistic was NOT higher than that of traditionally developing kids, thus putting the definitive nail in the mercury-causes-autism coffin. Somehow I predict that this latest development will not phase the antivax crowd not one bit; they’re already moving away to more generic “toxins” as the scapegoats anyway! Here is the full study if you care to read through it yourself.
I am not familiar with the website and the PDF does not look like a usual study PDF; looks too crude and amateurish so take these results with a grain of salt.
You got a review copy of the article, which is in-press, which is why it looks like that.
EHP is a National Institue of Environmental Health Sciences vehicle, funded by the NIH. The editorial board and content are independent, however, the fact that this is funded and published by the NIH is going to mean the autism quacks will reject it outright.
It looks like a good article, with excellent modelling, transparent statistics with very clearly explained reasoning, (statistical) biases all taken into account. It makes no overarching conclusions, and very clearly addresses why not. The study itself is ongoing, and will be interesting as more results come to light.
Ah, ok thanks for the explanation; gotta be skeptical you know? LOL
Yes, absolutely. The main thing about using teh interwebz for information rather than mere entertainment is being able to identify the source.
The article content looked better than I expected from your disclaimer, and I was an amateur editor for a student medical journal, so I recognised the look of a review copy. That’s why I went digging.