Hi,

Love you Kirsty but completely disagree with that argument that the rise in autism is due to better diagnostics. If that was the case where are all of the autistic adults? Sure there were some misdiagnosed as schizophrenic or retarded but we've gone from as 1 in 10,000 to 1 in around 160 (and thats being generous).

Any doctor or expert who dismisses out of hand a solid link between thimerisol and autism loses any credibility for me. The fact is the medical profession in general have no conclusive evidence on what causes autism - they need to be listening to the parents.

Would you know if you had a perfectly normal child, had them immunised and then lost them - not physically but in every other conceivable way within 48 hrs of the vaccination? I have said on here many times that I think there has to be a predisposition - and that may very well be what Kelly's article is talking about. But regressive autism is the autism that people are talking about - thats where you have a neurotypical child that loses their ability to communicate and loses interest in the world around them. Prenatal causes of mercury induced autism could be as simple as a mothers dental fillings or a high consumption of mercury rich fish.

Its my opinion that the autism spectrum is a hundred different illnesses with similar symptoms and slowly we will sort them out.