A few points on what will probably be my last thimerosal-related post for a while.
1) Notwithstanding my P.P.S. below, I'm not going to do a major discussion of the merits of the existing studies on the link between thimerosal and autism. Even though I think the existing studies may be less flawed than Dwight Meredith or Wampum do, the scope of the disagreement is ultimately marginal: I don't think the existing evidence provides conclusive disproof of a link, and they do not argue that the existing evidence provides conclusive proof of a link.
2) Professor Mark Kleiman is threatening to dethrone Prof. Reynolds as Most-Favored Professor of Blissful Knowledge. (All that's lacking is the ability to generate a few thousand more hits with each link, a spot on his permalinks and a 50% rightward correction in political views, and the deal is sealed.).
Regarding the screwups identified in the Tax Notes piece noted below, Kleiman notes:

This is exactly the reason that complicated legislation shouldn't be pushed through without hearings. And these two mistakes suggest that Dr. Frist, the sponsor of the original amendment, Dick Armey, who has sorta-kinda acknowledged that he was responsible for pasting it into the Homeland Security bill, and the still-anonymous-but-widely-believed-to-be-Mitch-Daniels White House gnome who passed the word to Armey all failed to perform due diligence. (Unless, that is, it was their intention to deprive the families of the right to sue and "accidentally" leave them with no recourse whatever.) If you're going to short-cut the process, you ought to be certain you've got the substance right.

There's nothing that keeps the new Congress from fixing these problems. But the Lilly lobbyists, and their friends on the Hill, including the new Majority Leader, now have the huge advantage of the status quo. And Frist may not regard himself as being bound by the promises to undo the damage that Trent Lott made (and immediately started to back away from) to hold on to the Republican moderate votes he needed to pass the bill last session. The families and their friends are now in the position of begging the other side for whatever concessions it might deign to offer. Not a pretty picture.

I agree with most of Kleiman's first paragraph. I'm less cynical than Kleiman about the likelihood that the errors will go uncorrected and even more doubtful that the result was some sort of conspiracy to leave affected families no recourse. Bill Frist's original bill (PDF link) on the subject contained the appropriate conforming amendments to the Internal Revenue Code (click here and here). With that precedent, it does not seem likely (to me, at least) that passage of the appropriate conforming amendments would meet with much difficulty on the merits. It's further argument against sloppy, slapdash lawmaking, but not proof of some conspiracy to wholly eliminate families' recourse.

3) Does anyone know how long of a lag there is in the collection and reporting of figures on autism incidence? We have had almost three years of largely thimerosal-free vaccinations being administered to children in the U.S., and I would expect that the resulting data on autism incidence should begin showing up soon. But I don't know for sure how long it takes for the information to be collected and reported. If any of my new readers knows the answer, please let me know.

UPDATE: Dwight Meredith writes in response to the above question:

While we do not know how long it will take for the “natural experiment” to help us know whether or not thimerosal used in infant vaccines is is related to autism, we suspect that it will be a while. Although thimerosal was removed from infant vaccines in 1999, there are a number of reasons why the question will not be immediately answered.
First, autistic behaviors often do not present themselves until 15-24 months of age. Accurate diagnosis can take additional time once autisic behaviors are present.
Secondly, although thimerosal was removed from infant vaccines in 1999, as we understand it, the vaccines were not recalled and we do not know how many kids were vaccinated from multiple dose vials containing thimerosal after 1999.
Third, the best studies of incidence, (like the UC-Davis study) deal with school system and government program data. It takes a while for changes in incidence to filter upwards to those programs and it takes a while to collect and report the data. The U.C.-Davis study looked at data from 1987 through 1998. The final report was issued this year.
The collection and analysis of the data is tricky. States that have good autism programs are likely to attract families with autistic kids. Thus, the studies have to control for migration. They also have to control for severity of the problems so as to avoid reporting an expansion of the spectrum as an increase in incidence. Those factors add to the lag time.
We do not know when the results of the “natural experiment” will be available. Anecdotal evidence is likely to surface soon. Definitive data may take a while longer.

Meredith also has some other observations on the nature of autism that are worth checking out.