Re: Re: Rain, Autism and Mercury

[Guest guest]

Doctors Data has a water quality test - our county does testing much much

cheaper.  they both had the same results where there was overlap.

From: kellie.elise <kellie.elise@...>

Subject: [ ] Re: Rain, Autism and Mercury

Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 2:40 PM

Wow. Its scary; how toxic our world is becoming. Does anyone know

how to get well water tested for mercury contamination? We drink well

water AND we live in a very rainy environment - Oregon (not to mention

we get the air drifting over from China).

>

>

http://www.huffingt onpost.com/ david-kirby/ rain-autism- and-mercury_ b_140753.

html

>

> *Rain, Autism, and Mercury

>

<http://www.huffingt onpost.com/ david-kirby/ rain-autism- and-mercury_

b_140753. html>*

>

> By Kirby

>

> Huffington Post

>

> A new study

>

<http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2008/ 11/03/AR20081103

02088_2.html>out

> of Cornell University says that children growing up in the rainiest or

> snowiest areas of the country seem to have a higher risk for autism

than

> children living in drier climates.

>

> The authors estimated that removing precipitation as a factor in autism

> would slice the prevalence of the disorder by 33% to 43%.

>

> Among the possible explanations given were: A lack of vitamin D from a

> sun-deprived life under the clouds, an increased amount of time spent

> indoors amid toxic household chemicals, or the presence of dangerous

> neurotoxins in the precipitation itself, which in turn might trigger a

> genetic predisposition to ASD.

>

> One of the most omnipresent, growing (and obvious) air-borne

neurotoxins

> in the world to consider, of course, is mercury.

>

> For a number of years, I have questioned whether rising levels of

> mercury from coal-fired power plants and other sources might be

> contributing to the overall body burden of heavy metals in pregnant

> women and infants in North America and elsewhere.

>

> This " background " mercury, combined with mercury from maternal seafood

> consumption, dental amalgams, the vaccine preservative thimerosal, and

> other sources, might combine and accumulate in the systems of

> genetically susceptible infants and fetuses, resulting in autism, I

have

> speculated.

>

> It is not clear how mercury fallout onto land and surface water can

> cause higher levels of inorganic mercury in the bloodstreams of humans.

> But a recent study of federal data showed that the percentage of

> Americans with detectable levels of inorganic mercury in their blood

> increased eightfold between 2000 and 2004.

>

> These are the same years that we see burgeoning levels of mercury being

> spewed into the atmosphere from industrializing areas of the world,

> particularly in China and other Asian countries.

>

> The US Government has detected " mercury plumes " that carry the

dangerous

> neurotoxin in great quantities across the Pacific and, within five

days,

> found them hovering just offshore of San Diego, California.

>

> At a recent vaccine forum at Hackensack University Medical Center, in

> New Jersey, I made this observation, and mentioned that the mercury

> carried aloft through the atmosphere will come down in the form of rain

> along the west coast or, during drier periods, continue eastward until

> it finds wetter, rainier parts of the country, where it is washed to

the

> ground.

>

> The evidence to show that rainy weather leads to increased mercury

> deposition on the ground is ample. In fact, scientists use rainfall

as a

> measure to estimate mercury deposition in the environment.

>

> One study from the University of Central Florida

> <http://cat.inist. fr/?aModele= afficheN & cpsidt=17848308% 20>, showed that

> 80% of the atmospheric mercury fallout in Florida occurs during the

> rainy season. In fact, the average amount of mercury deposited on the

> ground per square meter, per week, was three times higher in the wet

> season (600 nanograms) than the dry season (200 nanograms).

>

> There is likewise evidence to suggest that higher levels of background

> mercury are linked to a greater risk of autism. Two peer-reviewed

> studies from the University of Texas have suggested an increased

risk of

> autism associated with physical proximity to mercury-emitting

coal-fired

> powered plants and other industrial facilities.

>

> A third study, funded by the CDC and published in the NIH journal

> Environmental Health Perspectives, showed that children born in the

most

> polluted tracts of the San Francisco Bay Area (heavy metals like

mercury

> carried the highest risk) were 50% more likely to develop autism.

>

> " Our results suggest a potential association between autism and

> estimated metal concentrations in ambient air around the birth

> residence, " concluded the government-sponsore d study, (which was

> essentially ignored by the media).

>

> Suddenly, the " Mercury Rain " hypothesis starts to make a little more

> sense. Not that coal from China could cause autism directly, but

> prenatal mercury exposures might make children more susceptible to

other

> environmental triggers, including vaccine ingredients.

>

> Lathe, an autism expert from Pieta Research in Edinburgh,

> Scotland, told the //Washington Post //that the new study's findings

> almost certainly implicate rainfall, at the least.

>

> " Statistical correlations do not necessarily imply causality, " he said,

> but added, " the authors demonstrate, with better than 99 percent

> certainty, that the correlation is not by chance. "

>

> Lathe believes the most likely explanation, " is that rain carries

> chemicals in the atmosphere to the ground. " He said that, " Emissions

> from manufacturing industries, power plants (ie, coal), and from

> domestic waste incineration generally rise to the troposphere to be

> diluted into the large volume of the atmosphere. Precipitation can dump

> this load back on the land, to be absorbed by plants and animals in the

> food chain. "

>

> And, Lathe noted, " There has been a suggestion that maternal

exposure to

> environmental toxins might contribute to autism in children, " he said.

>

> I am not the only one to suggest that ALL mercury exposures - both

> environmental and vaccine-related - must be taken into account when

> trying to asses the risk of mercury and autism.

>

> In my book,// Evidence of Harm,// I noted that Dr. Neal Halsey,

director

> of the Vaccine Safety Institute at s Hopkins University School of

> Medicine, and a vaccine authority, said in 1999 that, " Mercury

> accumulated in women is transferred to their children prenatally and in

> breast milk. " Subsequent exposures from other sources, " including

> biologic products, (ie, vaccines), are presumed to be additive to their

> baseline body loads. "

>

> And in 2006, a special panel of the NIH wrote that background mercury

> exposures must be taken into account when assessing the risk of autism

> and thimerosal.

>

> " Panel members expressed a concern that thimerosal dose, administered

> through a series of vaccinations, may provide a poor surrogate measure

> of the cumulative exposure of a child to organic mercurials. Exposures

> through diet or other environmental sources would not be documented

> reliably, " the NIH panel wrote.

>

> Can rain cause autism? Of course not. But could it pull mercury down

> from the skies - mercury carried aloft from far away countries across

> the seas - and affect unborn and newborn children to the point of

making

> them more vulnerable to autistic regression?

>

> This new study makes one thing fairly clear to me: Autism is not a

> purely genetic disorder. Our changing, endangered, dirty environment is

> playing a role.

>