Significant Research Reports
The links below lead to summaries or full-text versions of important articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals. (Recently published items will be linked in the near future.) Please contact us to suggest articles that should be added to this page.
Autism and Mercury
- Williams PG and others. A controlled study of mercury levels in hair samples of children with autism as compared to their typically developing siblings. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders (in press), 2007. Although autism has no logical association with mercury toxicity or other heavy metal exposure, oral and topical chelation therapy are being used to treat autism after evaluation of hair, blood, or urine samples for heavy metal toxicity. In this study, hair samples were obtained from 15 children ages 2 to 6 with autism and 16 of their nonautistic siblings in the same age range. No significant differences in mercury levels were found between the two groups. This study is strong evidence against the notion that mercury toxicity causes autism.
This page was posted on July 8, 2007.