It Isn't Vaccines

A report released in January finds a genetic link to autism. U.S. News & World Report summarizes the findings of the research and also the results of many studies both in the U.S. and abroad that find no correlation between vaccination and autism.

"Earlier this week, researchers at the California Department of Public Health reported that the rates of autism in children born from 1989 through 2003 has risen, despite the fact that the preservative thimerosal, which contains toxic mercury, was largely phased out of vaccines during that time. It echoes studies in five other countries, including Canada in 2007, that failed to find a link between the use of vaccines or thimerosal and autism.

Some parents and autism activists argue that vaccines, or the thimerosal in them, is responsible for autism. [Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and father of a 15-year-old daughter with autism] says: 'It doesn't make sense that mercury would cause autism, because we know what mercury does cause' —horrible diseases like Minamata, in which children are born with deformed limbs."