Reply #23: I hate to disagree, there is evidence of Mercury causation, but it is from Coal NOT vaccines

[happyslug]

Under Reagan (We keep going back to him for some reason) the issue of using "Scrubbers" to remove excess mercury came up. It quickly became a debate between Eastern high mercury content coal vs Western low mercury content coal, but in a way that was strange. If Reagan put the restrictions on mercury being released as low as was recommended, utilities that burned coal for electrical generation would have to use Scrubbers no matter which coal was used, and preferred Eastern Coal for its greater energy content.

On the other hand, if the mercury guidelines went NOT set as low, Western Coal was preferred for it meet the higher Mercury release levels without scrubbers. Thus Western (which tend to be non-unionized coal) fought it out with Eastern UMW coal. As you can guess Western, non-unionized coal won and the scrubbers were NOT installed.

Recently it was found that Eastern Bituminous coal ash tended to absorb mercury, while Western Ligate coal ash did not. Combined with the above can explain the slow increase in autistic children over the last 30 years, tied in with greater release of Mercury by burning Ligate coal. In fact Legate Coal is even imported into Western Pennsylvania to use to generate Electricity, while Bituminous coal mined locally is shipped overseas for steel production.

Just pointing out that the switch in what coal we are burning to produce electricity has increased the mercury in the air. You have had a huge slow increase in electrical generation by coal, mostly ligate, since Reagan was President. This would affect children first in the form of Autism. The fact bituminous coal Absorbs mercury can help explain why we did not see as many in the 1950s and 1960s as we do now (With the big reason is the simple increase in mercury being released, even through the coal burned before 1980 had higher mercury content, its ash absorb more mercury then was released when it was burned).

That it is the mercury ABSORB by the body as a whole would also explain why it would NOT show up in the blood, the issue is NOT that the blood has mercury in it today, but that it was used in the pass to transfer mercury to the brain.

As I was writing the above I remember a "factoid" told to me many years ago, when your body needs something it will "crave" it, even if you are NOT hungary. Most scientists who have studied this come to the conclusion that the body will grave a food the body associates with whatever material the body needs. In reverse, the body will avoid foods that the body has come to associate with to high a concentration of material the body finds harmful. I bring this up for it was mentioned that most Autistic Children avoid Fish, while normal children eat fish AND that fish is the main source of Mercury in most people's bodies. Are the bodies of the autistics trying to avoid additional mercury by refusing to eat fish? I do not know the answer (it may just be the group used in the study just had a lot of anti-fish eaters for all I know) but its seems to indicate that the problem may be Mercury. Now I do NOT believe the Mercury in the vaccines caused the Autism but in some cases it may have provided the "last straw" of mercury needed to engage the tendency to autism (the main source of Mercury being Coal being burned to produce Electricity). Just something to think about and discuss and look into see if anyone is doing research it.

More on Mercury and coal see the following:
http://autisminnb.blogspot.com/2007/10/autistic-children-canaries-in-coal-mine.html
http://energy.er.usgs.gov/health_environment/mercury/mercury_coal.html
http://www.prleap.com/pr/105706/
http://www.utsystem.edu/news/clips/dailyclips/2005/0312-0318/UTHSCSA-HC-links-031705.pdf

Mercury and Autism:
http://www.usautism.org/USAAA_Newsletter/usaaa_newsletter_103007.htm
http://www.infowars.com/articles/science/mercury_air_pollution_autism.htm

Some cites that claim support for Mercury in Vaccine is causing Autism:
http://autismcoach.com/Autism%20Declines%20When%20Mercury%20Vaccines%20Banned.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/mercury/analysis.html