EBD Blog

Eric Fombonne has continued to voice his doubts about the putative relationship between thimerosal and Autism. In an editorial in the prestigious Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. Fombonne, whom alert readers will remember was mentioned in an earlier EBD Blog post because of his research on this issue, makes a clear case about the problems with the thimerosal hypothosis. In his comments for the Archives, he is providing context for the results of another study in that journal that shows no apparent causal relationship.

Here are the first few words of Dr. Fombonne’s comments:

Since autism was described in the 1940s, multiple unfounded theories of causation and corollary “treatments” have been offered. Psychiatry, then a psychoanalytically oriented discipline, posited a psychosocial explanation that blamed “refrigerator” mothers for the child’s withdrawal into the autistic bubble, only to be reached by the interpretations of therapists engaged in long-term play therapy. To name only a few more recent such theories taken from both the psychosocial and biological realm of explanations, facilitated communication and secretin infusion enjoyed widespread support up to the point when the systematic accumulation of carefully controlled clinical trials consistently failed to provide support for their efficacy. In the last decade, 2 hypotheses on autism-immunization links were raised that have had a profound impact in the field of autism research and practice and on public health at large. One incriminated the measles component of the triple measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, the other the amount of thimerosal . . .

Dr. Fombonne’s comments appear in the issue of the journal that also includes the study by Robert Schechter and Judith Grether about continuing increases in the incidence of Autism in California (US) even though thimerosal no longer appears in vaccines used there. That study, which contradicts less-carefully conducted research claiming the opposite, received a lot of press in the first few weeks of 2008.

Citation:
Fomboone, E. (2008). Thimerosal disappears but autism remains. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65(1), 15-16.