Autism--the Mercury Connection

Ever since Leo Kanner first gave the name "autism" to a series of social and linguistic deficits, often connected with repetitive stereotypical behavior in an individual, there have been considerable efforts to try to divine the genetic basis and biological pathways of this condition. In the 1950s-1970s, and still to a certain extent in some European contexts, autism was popularly seen as a psychological problem that was best addressed through various types of holding or talk therapy. At the same time a movement arose, based on the behavior principles of BF Skinner, a movement that was agnostic as to the cause of autism but believed that applied behavior management/analysis through discrete trial training was the best way to break a child from the manifestation of these deficits. There are many different emphases in applied behavior analysis (ABA), but this approach has proved to ameliorate some of the more crippling features of autism for many people. ABA could be looked at as one example of what we might call "behavioral" or "educational" approaches to dealing with individuals with autism. Pharmacological approaches to treatment of autism were, and remain, popular, also, though critics of these approaches assert that drugs merely mask a symptom rather than seek to get at its root.

In the last 20 years two other approaches to understanding or dealing with autism have arisen, each with its own promise but with fully different premises. The genetic approach, fueled by the explosion in our understanding of the genetic basis of all life, as well as the completion in the last five years of the human genome project, seeks to understand the nature of genetic abnormalities or susceptibilities that might combine with environmental insult and result in autistic symptoms. Search is underway for the isolation of genes on various "short arms" or "long arms" of genetic configurations in order to isolate the "problem genes." This task is fraught with possibility but also hampered by the stark reality that with 20,000 or so genes in the human body, it might take quite a while to come up with one or a combination of genetic culprits behind autism. The problem is even more complicated than this. Though there are 20,000 genes, the real "mini-culprits" are the base pairs, which are the building blocks of our DNA. There are about 3,000,000,000 (yes, three billion) base pairs within the human body. Each of the 23 chromosomes in a human cell has millions to tens of millions of them. When we look at the genetic muddle from this angle, we see we may never be able to isolate the genetic offender in autism. Yet, this research is ongoing.

A More Promising Way

Ever since the late Bernard Rimland, founder of the Autism Society of America and the Autism Research Institute in the mid-1960s, began his work on autism, he was convinced that there was also a biological basis to the problem that could be addressed through vitamins, food supplements and possibly other treatment modalities. In other words, Dr. Rimland believed that there was something that could be done now to ameliorate some of the symptoms of autism. As a researcher and data-gatherer, however, he had to develop a means by which he could try to deliver good information to parents of autistic children. So, beginning in the late 1960s, he developed a parental reporting system where people could indicate which medications, supplements, diets, as well as drugs, seemed to ameliorate (or sometimes worsen) the child's autistic symptoms.

Through Dr. Rimland's effort, researchers were directed to yet a different area for understanding autism--compromised bodily systems that might contribute to the manifestations of autism. If autism had a biological basis (though not discounting an underlying genetic problem), one might do two things: (1) isolate bodily systems that seemed most compromised in autistic individuals; (2) develop diets, supplements or treatments that would lessen the problems associated with those bodily systems. In the past 15 years, the three bodily systems receiving the most attention are the immune, gastroenterological and toxic-excreting systems. This and the next two essays will focus on the third point.

Stating the Hypothesis

Though I am not sure when the suggestion first came forth (nor who made the suggestion) that autism was a condition manifested in difficulties of detoxification and elimination of heavy metals in our bodies (e.g., lead, cadmium, mercury, zinc), for the last decade the issue has been raging. The hypothesis that I will examine in the next few essays is that heavy metal toxicity, especially with ingestion and excretion of mercury, might contribute to the manifestation of symptoms we know as autism.

Because the literature and blogs are filled with such conflicting pieces of information, as well as different levels of emotion on the "mercury" issue, I would like to go step by step, giving information that I think is sound as well as questions that I feel aren't answered fully, so that we can understand this issue. It currently is one of the "big topics" in autism research, especially by those who focus on the "biomedical" rather than the "genetic" approach to autism.

The next essay explores thimerosal and its possible connection with mercury poisoning. Turn to that now...

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