[PROVE]Texas Researcher Links Industrial Mercury to Autism

[Guest guest]

[PROVE Note: This is huge! I can't wait for the bureaucrats at the CDC to try

and wiggle their way out of this trying to maintain their desperate position

that mercury in vaccines doesn't cause autism.]

Study links autism to mercury from coal plants

Emissions may contribute to rise in cases, Texas researcher says

Reuters

Updated: 9:40 a.m. ET March 17, 2005

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7218182/

SAN ANTONIO - Mercury released primarily from coal-fired power plants may be

contributing to an increase in the number of cases of autism, a Texas researcher

said on Wednesday.

A study to be published on Thursday in the journal “Health and Place” found that

autism, a developmental disorder marked by communication and social interaction

problems, increased in Texas counties as mercury emissions rose, said

, a family and community medicine professor at the University of Texas

Health Science Center in San .

“The main finding is that for every thousand pounds of environmentally released

mercury, we saw a 17 percent increase in autism rates,” she said in an

interview.

About 48 tons of mercury are released into the air annually in the United States

from hundreds of coal-burning plants.

The study looked at Texas county-by-county levels of mercury emissions recorded

by the government and compared them to the rates of autism and special education

services in 1,200 Texas school districts, said.

“The study shows that there may be a very important connection between

environmental exposure to mercury and the development of autism,” she said in an

interview.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has said it does not know how many cases of

autism there are in the country or whether the number has increased, but that

the issue is under study.

Some experts estimate there are 1.5 million people in the United States with

autism, most of them children, and say the number of cases has risen rapidly in

recent years.

“Autism has increased dramatically over the last decade or so and the reasons

for that have really stumped the medical community,” said.

“Now we think that due to the rising exposures in pollutants like mercury, they

may be at the root of some of these cases,” she said.

The Bush administration this week ordered power plants to cut mercury pollution

by 50 percent within 15 years, but environmentalists said the action fell short

of what was needed. They have called for a 90 percent cut in mercury emissions.

“This research has implications for toxic substance regulation and prevention

policies,” said Palmer, an autism expert at the San school who

helped in the study.

“Policies regarding toxic release of mercury and the incidence of developmental

disorders should be investigated,” he said.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or

redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior

written consent of Reuters.

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Dawn

PROVE(Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education)

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