Via a commenter at Tom Maguire's, here is an interesting article on autism from a physician's perspective over several decades of practice. Here is an excerpt:

In some children the clinical signs and symptoms of autism had been present from birth. In others, the child was quite normal (neurotypical) at birth and reached developmental milestones, including language acquisition at the usual times and in the usual manner. But then at age two, three or four, a conspicuous regressive process began robbing the child of all of that natural progress. Interestingly, in these late onset cases the parents all had some sentinel event that, in their mind, accounted for the cause of this dreadful regressive pattern: "ever since he fell off the pier and nearly drowned"; "the time he got trapped in the silo"; or "ever since he went into the hospital to have his tonsils removed".

The point is that there is a natural tendency on the part of parents to seek out and blame some event or procedure for the onset of such startling regression in a child who has otherwise been developing normally. ... Obviously, in seeking causes, one has to separate out temporal relationship to causal relationship.

(Emphasis added.)

Interestingly, he believes that there has indeed been an increase in incidence of autism over the decades, but not at "epidemic" levels.

My piece on autism, vaccines and John McCain is up at Pajamas Media.

I have been working on a much longer piece dealing with the whole autism/thimerosal/John McCain affair for another (paying) site. It will hopefully be published soon, and I will link to it when it is.

Sigh.

Did John McCain really have to throw a bone to the discredited mercury-mongers? A further data point that you shouldn't let your kids grow up to be Presidential candidates.

I'd like to believe that Megan is right and that McCain pandered out of a combination of ignorance and not wanting to tell a potential voter that her firmest beliefs about her child's autism are without basis. There may be more to it than that (or to the idea that McCain's science adviser is Don Imus). McCain does have a minor history with the mercury types: specifically, he has met with representatives of an organization dedicated to pushing the mercury connection (not that there's anything wrong with meeting with them) and sent a letter (together with Sen Lieberman) to Ted Kennedy (and the Republican ranking member) asking themto hold hearings on the topic.

(Note that this same organization sent letters to certain of the other Presidential candidates asking them to respond to various autism-related questions. The staffs of Senators Biden, Edwards and Obama (see the January 2, 2008 section) made sure that they didn't buy into the mercury/vaccine claims.)

That being said, McCain does not have much of a record on pushing the thimerosal issue (quite unlike the lunatic Dan Burton in the House). (Writing a letter to a fellow Senator is a reliable way of getting noisy constituents to shut up and keep the campaign contributions coming.) His campaign website has nothing on the topic (unlike Barack Obama's). Absent further developments, there is little reason to think that McCain would push the issue or that he really knows or cares much about it. But I do wish someone would set him straight.

I also liked Jonathan Kulick's lovely retort.

UPDATE: Arthur Allen has more on how McCain is connected to the mercury militia. Allen also notes that "McCain isn't known to have any familiarity with vaccine safety issues."

Check out the latest post from Orac for more well-done fillet of RFK, Jr. Follow the links to some devastating reviews of David Kirby's book, especially this one. (Click here for a response by Kirby to some of the criticisms.)

UPDATE: Flattery will get you everywhere, Derek Lowe (except for getting your experiments to work better - you need to appeal to a higher authority for that).

Reading about Lowe's struggles with drug development reminded me of another point that needs to be made with respect to this thimerosal/autism theme. The RFK/David Kirby crowd assumes that the vaccine industry is synonymous with "Big Pharma," possessing limitless power to bend scientists and government regulators to its heartless, rapacious will. But the truth is a little more complicated. Big pharmaceutical companies certainly are part of the vaccine industry, but as we found out in last winter's flu-vaccine debacle, there isn't enough money in the U.S. vaccine industry for "Big Pharma" to produce adequate stocks of many vaccines. In that respect, the problem isn't too much involvement on the part of "Big Pharma" or the vaccine industry being a big-money enterprise - in each case, there's too little of the supposed evil. (Dare I say that the assumption of the pro-thimerosal-link crowd is analogous to a trial lawyer's point of view, in looking for a "deep pocket" that may only have been tangentially involved in the supposed harm?)

I have a number of friends who are pediatricians, who have to deal with questions regarding vaccinations, thimerosal, autism etc. on a regular basis.

When trhis topic was in the news in late 2002, one of my pediatrician friends told me that he had numerous parents ask him about the supposed vaccination-autism link, being very skeptical of the evidence against such a link.

And very often, those parents would immediately ask him about whether they could get a smallpox vaccine for their children (the debate over which was also in the news at the time).

Of course - as was well publicized at the time - the documented proof of adverse reactions from the smallpox vaccine far exceeded any proof as to the adverse effects generally of regularly administered vaccines, or of any thimerosal-autism link.

One last thing before knocking off for the evening.

My original interest in the subject matter was related to the waiver passed as a late-night rider to the Homeland Security bill in late 2002 (and repealed in early 2003 due to the outcry over the sleazy circumstances related to its passage) shielding vaccine makers (most notably Eli Lilly) from thimerosal-related lawsuits (i.e., such claims would have to go through the no-fault Vaccine Industry Compensation Program).

As set forth in the recent NYT front-page story, the lawsuit-fueling furor over the "link" isn't going away, regardless of the lack of sceintific evidence for it.

In my opinion, the enduring disconnect between the scientific evidence and popular belief (to be expressedin lawsuits) make this case an ideal one for legislative action along the lines of what was proposed in 2002 (though not what was passed, as the haste led to all kinds of foul-ups). If you're going to have such legislatively-created alternatives to the tort system, you may as well have them where there is a clear disconnect between the scientific evidence and the mass of claims being pressed in court.

Please click here for my disclosure statements relating to the subject matter of this post.

I am not a scientist, so I'm open to one telling me that the following question is bunk for some reason. But I've got the following question about the supposed thimerosal-autism link anyway:

A common refrain among the exponents of a potential thimerosal-autism link is that, in the words of David Kirby, thimerosal may "trigger adverse reactions in a subset of children with a genetic predisposition to mercury sensitivity." This assertion is often used as a response as to why the large-scale epidemeological studies do not pick up on the thimerosal-autism link (i.e., that susceptible subset may be underepresented in the population studied). But as I understand it, those large-scale studies do in fact pick up on the increase itself of autism diagnoses; it's just the connection between such increases and thimerosal that fails to stand up.

If all those are true, then in order to be the, or a, major cause of the increase in autism diagnoses, thimerosal must "trigger adverse reactions in a subset of children with a genetic predisposition to mercury sensitivity:" with such subset simultaneously being

a) small enough to evade detection in the large-scale studies that have been conducted so far (i.e., without being fleshed out as a group disproportionally susceptible to autism by virtue of thimerosal exposure); and

b) big enough to account for the increase in estimated incidence from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 166 or thereabouts.

How can both of those things be true? If a particular subset of children is particularly susceptible to mercury exposure, large enough to account for the increases in diagnoses and not being picked up in the studies previously conducted, then those studies also shouldn't reflect an increase in autism cases generally - but they do, as far as I know. And if the subset is big enough to at least be a main factor in accounting for the increase, shouldn't it be detectable in the large-scale studies that have been conducted? And if it isn't big enough...then the point has been conceded; even if there is a small subset of children particularly susceptible to mercury exposure, we must look elsewhere to find the main cause of increased diagnoses.

(If only all pharmaceutical targeted interventions worked as well as thimerosal is argued to do, then perhaps Big Pharma would deserve the dark, satanic power ascribed to it by the thimerosal-link activists.)

I welcome comments from people who have greater knowledge of scientific study methods, statistics or the subject matter generally.

Please click here for my disclosure statements relating to the subject matter of this post.

More than you think.

I have not yet read David Kirby's book Evidence of Harm. But his presentation of the case for the thimerosal-autism link, based on what I've seen from his website, press appearances and other writings seems to be a perfect encapsulation of some of the worst features of contemporary mainstream journalism:

1) "How William Goldman Ruined Journalism" - This hasn't gotten enough attention in light of the Deep Throat revelation, but William Goldman's line "Follow the money," uttered by Hal Holbrook in the movie (it didn't come from the book itself) has led to almost 30 years of lazy Marxist journalism that follows the exact same script:

A) Policymaker does something objectionable doesn't do something virtuous (fill in your own blank);

B) Policymaker received moeny (a campaign contribution for a politician, some other connection for a non-elected official) from eeeeevil entity with an interest in the matter (pharmaceutical industry, Halliburton, etc.)

C) Ergo, policymaker is a wholly bought tool of Satan, and no other explanation for action/inaction is necessary. QED.

This pattern is especially egregious when it "follows the money" on one side only, ignoring equally interesting financial ties on the favored side. For example: assuming the pervasive links between the pharmaceutical/vaccine industry and the medical establishment who have dismissed the link means it is safe to discredit their views, while somehow not drawing similar conclusions regarding the equally pervasive conflicts affecting many of the players on the pro-link side. (I don't think Kirby actually ignores those conflicts in his book, like the RFK piece does, but doesn't it go without saying that the vaccine industry is part of the evil conspiracy that got us into war in Iraq (sorry, was that Halliburton or the Likud party? I can't keep my conspiracies straight), while trial lawyers are the good guys and thus there's no conflict of interest?)

If you only focus on the financial conflicts of one side and ignore those of the other, you're not "following the money," merely your own preconceptions.

2) The reliance on standard templates for telling stories, and shoehorning messy facts into those predetermined templates:

"Plucky parents of horribly ill children taking on unfeeling, big-money establishment" is one story to tell, and that's the one Kirby tells. Another story that could be told is "Anti-vaccine activists and trial lawyers prey on the desperation of parents of autistic children, and help bring about outbreaks of previously eradicated diseases leading to many preventable severe illnesses and deaths, based on 'junk science' and outright distortions." That story is at least as accurate, and probably more so, than the Kirby template. But it doesn't sound as good, for a variety of reasons. I have faith that it will be told, eventually.

3) Focusing on the buzz around a topic, rather than the topic itself. Kirby has a few posts at the "Huffington Post" cheerleading the attention paid to the RFK article and related activism as a good in and of itself. Sorry, but the fact that Don Imus won't shut up about the topic on his radio show does not make the underlying science any better.

4) Disingenuousness as to the author's beliefs and biases, which is worse than actually having them. ("It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.") I've spoken to Kirby and he seems like a really nice guy, and he is clearly motivated by sympathy for the activist parents of autistic children who are his protagonists. Hard to object to that sentiment. But when I've spoken to him and in much of his supporting commentary to the book, he strikes a really disingenuous tone: professing agnosticism as to the thimerosal-autism link on the one hand (which makes a handy defense against scientifically-based critiques) while his presentation buys into the pro-link side (as well as the poor-parents-versus-Goliath/Satan template; see #2 above) in every respect. Read this post and see if Kirby really is undecided about the matter:

Of course, it’s possible that this army of congressional investigators will determine that injecting organic mercury directly into newborn babies was a perfectly harmless thing to do, and did not trigger adverse reactions in a subset of children with a genetic predisposition to mercury sensitivity. They may declare that the synchronization of the autism epidemic and rising thimerosal exposures in the 1990s was merely an uncanny coincidence. They may find that a thorough review of a federal vaccine database, currently under lock-and-key, reveals zero evidence of an association. They may discover that removing mercury from autistic children yields absolutely no clinical benefits whatsoever. And, contrary to Mr. Kennedy’s assertions, they may conclude that everyone in the government and drug industry acted with nothing but the utmost forthrightness, untainted by malfeasance and conflicts of interest, openly sharing all that they knew about thimerosal’s toxicity with the American public.

(To take one of about 25 possible examples from the above paragraph, of course there are financial ties between the vaccine industry and the government agencies that could give rise to conflicts of interest. But it doesn't pass any test of rationality to say those ties necessarily discredit everything they've said against the thimerosal-autism link, while simultaneously asserting the Geiers' extensive work as expert witnesses arguing for such a link is no conflict at all.)

Please click here for my disclosure statements relating to the subject matter of this post.

Prompted by the RFK article and Kirby book, the NYT has entered the thimerosal-autism fray with an article titled "On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research." Some highlights:

But scientists and public health officials say they are alarmed by the surge of attention to an idea without scientific merit. The anti-thimerosal campaign, they say, is causing some parents to stay away from vaccines, placing their children at risk for illnesses like measles and polio.

...In recent months, the fight over thimerosal has become even more bitter. In response to a barrage of threatening letters and phone calls, the centers for disease control has increased security and instructed employees on safety issues, including how to respond if pies are thrown in their faces. One vaccine expert at the centers wrote in an internal e-mail message that she felt safer working at a malaria field station in Kenya than she did at the agency's offices in Atlanta.

The article's authors have put themselves firmly against the side espousing the thimerosal-autism link. While I agree with that judgment, I must admit that the article could be taught as a primary text in the Columbia School of Journalism, if the school has a class in "How to Get Your Viewpoint Across When You Can't Just Come Out and Say It." If the above excerpts weren't enough, check out the descriptions of the favored "experts" of the thimerosal-autism link exponents, the Geiers. The authors introduce the father-son team (with only the former being a doctor) as witnesses in hearings called by Rep. Dan Burton (previously famous for his lurid conspiracy theories, espoused on the House floor, about the death of Vince Foster) which also featured the following cast of characters:

In a series of House hearings held from 2000 through 2004, Mr. Burton called the leading experts who assert that vaccines cause autism to testify. They included a chemistry professor at the University of Kentucky who says that dental fillings cause or exacerbate autism and other diseases and a doctor from Baton Rouge, La., who says that God spoke to her through an 87-year-old priest and told her that vaccines caused autism.

Describing the Geiers' working conditions:

He and his son live and work in a two-story house in suburban Maryland. Past the kitchen and down the stairs is a room with cast-off, unplugged laboratory equipment, wall-to-wall carpeting and faux wood paneling that Dr. Geier calls "a world-class lab - every bit as good as anything at N.I.H."

(The article does not comment on what N.I.H. labs look like, but one can assume they do not feature "cast-off, unplugged laboratory equipment." I hope.)

Dr. Geier's credentials:

He has also testified in more than 90 vaccine cases, he said, although a judge in a vaccine case in 2003 ruled that Dr. Geier was "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience."

In other cases, judges have called Dr. Geier's testimony "intellectually dishonest," "not reliable" and "wholly unqualified."

Any questions about what we're supposed to think of the Geiers?

Mind you, I think the description is wholly justified. But isn't there some degree of disingenuousness in laying it on that thick, without the writer having to put his/her own name behind an explicit judgment?

Actually, it's probably only fitting, given the phony agnosticism that pervades much of the favorable press coverage given to the pro-link forces. More on that in the next post.

For now, the NYT has earned an amnesty from my complaints. A temporary one, at least.

Please click here for my disclosure statements relating to the subject matter of this post.

After the Institute of Medicine published a comprehensive report rejecting the suggestions of a link between thimerosal and autism, one might have thought that the question had been put to rest. But the combination of parents of autistic children desparately seeking answers and trial lawyers sensing a potential jackpot has kept the question alive as a discussion topic, if not a scientific inquiry. The publication of David Kirby's book Evidence of Harm has given new life to the old story, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. recently entered the fray with a sensationalistic piece in Salon and Rolling Stone (which you can read for free here), arguing that "government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public."

Writing in the "Huffington Post," David Kirby wrote a post titled "Bring it On" that RFK Jr.'s allegations "cry out for a response."

Consider it brought, courtesy of the blogosphere.

Anyone interested in such a response may consult, among others: Lindsay Beyerstein here ("As far as I can tell, the thimerosal/autism connection is totally unsupported by evidence."), here ("The 286-page transcript [ED: click here for the entire thing] doesn't come close to vindicating Kennedy's grandiose claims") and especially here ("Nothing said at Simpsonwood suggests an attempt to whitewash or cover up anything.") Or, you can consult the academic surgeon "Orac," who took the arguments on here , here, here and here. Also see Skeptico (hereand here) and "Autism Diva," who points out an area where RFK, Jr. and one of his chief sources really need to coordinate their talking points. More pointed commentary on the link, or lack thereof, can be found here. Finally, if you feel like watching an ad, you can access Salon itself and see some letter exchanges between readers and RFK, Jr. (for some key examples, click here and here) as well as the numerous corrections Salon has made since the article's publication.

In December of 2002, I wrote a number of posts expressing skepticism about a link between thimerosal and autism and supporting the concept of a bill madating that any such claims be pursued through the Vaccine Industry Compensation Program. Those posts can be found here, here and here.

In June of 2003, David Kirby briefly interviewed me for what became his recently published book Evidence of Harm. I understand that I am not mentioned or quoted in the book. (No offense taken - I didn't say anything particularly original or worthwhile.)

In the fall and winter of 2003, around the time of my son's second birthday, we became aware of certain regressions and developmental delays. Our son was subsequently diagnosed with autism. We were not aware of our son manifesting any symptoms at the time I wrote the posts linked above.

As of this writing, I have not yet read Evidence of Harm, though I have followed closely the coverage of the issues raised therein and am familiar with the book's general arguments.

As long as we're on the subject of inappropriate reactions to disabilities, here's one that I've occasionally heard.

Many people of a certain religious sensibility commonly react to news of an ongoing or long-term tragedy by reassuring the unlucky party that "God only gives people what they can handle."

I know it a) is meant as a compliment, b) is the messy result of when the laudable desire to console meets the unconsolable, and c) may even be true on some level. But - coming from another person - it is also a selfish response: The person reacting thusly does so because he or she is unable to confront the reality without giving a reason, no matter how inapt. The "answer" may work for someone uninvolved with the situation on a daily basis, but here's a tip: it doesn't work so well for those who have to live with it. As such, it's about consoling the consoler.

Here are two responses I've (sort-of) bit my tongue on:

1) "Thanks for calculating our merits and deficiencies so carefully. Can we get a recount?"

2) "Suppose we want to have another child. According to the best current estimates, that child would have approximately a 1 in 15 chance of being autistic as well. So for the sake of that child, we should work hard to erode all of our coping habits and strategies, as well as undergoing hypnosis to forget everything we've learned about how to help an autisitic child. Oh yes - we should gamble away all of our money as well - it wouldn't be prudent to have any financial resources that could go towards helping an autistic child. Can't take the risk of actually being able to handle it."

It's much better to resist the impulse to answer the insoluble. Just expressing sympathy (and asking if there's anything you can do - with autism at least, the answer is usually "no," so it's a safe question) will encompass the overwhelming majority of what can be done.

This Shabbat, our synagogue featured a program on behalf of Yachad, a truly wonderful organization dedicated to Jewish individuals with disabilities.

As reported to me by Mrs. Manhattan, the Yachad representative addressed the congregation about the importance of accommodating people with disabilities on a communal and institutional level.

I agree.

In fact, it is such a good idea that we hope that our communal institutions - most notably, our synagogue which featured this excellent program - will respond by trying to be even slightly responsive to the concerns of families dealing with disabilities. Imagine that!

Dealing with autism is famous in its necessity for "doing-it-yourself" with respect to treatment and support options. One might have thought that our synagogue, led by a rabbi whom we love and respect deeply, might be somewhat proactive with respect to certain issues with which we need to deal. (Actually, we'd settle for them being somewhat reactive.) Living here long enough, we thought we knew better - yet we've still been shocked at the non-responsiveness we've encountered from our communal institutions. (We have, of course, received much support from certain individuals.) I won't go into too much detail - as some of the people in question will hopefully be reading this - but the ideals in the address delivered by the Yachad representative bore scant relationship to the reality we (and many other families we know) encounter on a daily basis. One might say that it's a finely-tuned machine for forcing families dealing with disabilities to move elsewhere.

It's nice to have an annual Shabbat program devoted to raising money and consciousness for the disabled, but it's nicer to try to integrate those ideals on a regular basis. Many families would be thankful.

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.

My post below has drawn a lot of attention, and many good comments, all of which I appreciate. Most notably, Dwight Meredith has responded in both the comments section and in a post on his own blog. Mr. Meredith's posts are models of how to rigorously argue a viewpoint on an emotional topic without allowing (justifiable) emotion to usurp reason. I regret not having followed his blog earlier, and a place will be made for his site in my permalinks in their next reorganization (which will occur sometime prior to the second Bill Frist administration).
As a tribute to Mr. Meredith's skills, I will not allow my own reasoning to unjustifiably succumb to his. Specifically, I want to address a few of the points he made in his post.

Mr. Meredith argues that I am "quick to declare that no link between thimerosal and autism has been shown and that there is no such link." I don't agree, at least with the second part. I do not think that the current evidence shows a convincing link between thimerosal and autism, but that does not mean that no such link exists. It just means it hasn't been shown yet. I'm glad that several studies are currently being done to explore the issue further.
Mr. Meredith then reads my post as implying that "the entire issue is driven by greedy lawyers eager to bankrupt Eli Lilly." Not the entire issue, but part of it. More specifically, that is an excellent summary of why I think the recent amendment to the Homeland Security bill was substantively appropriate in its own right. I don't argue that the lawyers created the concerns regarding thimerosal, though I wouldn't be surprised if they try to fan the flames of such concerns even if convincing scientific evidence emerges against such a link.
Mr. Meredith also refers me to Wampum, another interesting read. She notes that, in apparent contradiction to the CDC's officially sanguine view of thimerosal, the Bush administration has agreed to release certain documents in connection with the issue, including internal CDC documents which purportedly state that "mercury in children's vaccines is a potential source of neurological damage in children including ADD/ADHD, speech and language delays and other neurological disorders including autism."
We should all look forward to the revelation of whatever evidence is found in those documents. We should note, though, that the CDC documents referred to in the release are apparently the ones obtained by Safe Minds, an autism activist group, via the Freedom of Information Act. The New York Times Magazine article about the thimerosal issue notes in an aside that those CDC documents were "far from conclusive evidence" of a link. (Again - it's not proof of no link; just not clear proof of a link (assuming the Times' report is accurate).)
Finally, Mr. Meredith concludes:
We have been fighting battles in the area of autism for some time now. So far, money and politics has always trumped science and kids. For once, we should forget about politics, blame, potential liabilities, campaign contributions and other factors. Put all that stuff aside. Forget which side wins and which side loses. Sides suck. We should simply provide the scientists with all available information and plenty of money so that they can save our children.
I couldn't agree more.
And I assume one of my correspondents agrees as well. He identifies himself as a "parent of an autistic child and an active fundraiser for biomedical research into autism." He e-mailed me to describe "how angry I was that this group of trial lawyers was so active at trying to suck resources away from the research and into their pockets in the name of a phony connection between thimerosal and autism. Frankly, I wish whoever added that provision to the Homeland Security bill would come forward so I could express my appreciation."
Unfortunately, resources are never infinite. We should certainly pursue whatever leads appear promising, but not be afraid to reallocate scarce resources if those leads fail to deliver on their promise.
P.S. A tax lawyer friend e-mailed me an interesting article about the amendment that appeared in Tax Notes. Unfortunately, the article is only available by subscription.
The author is openly hostile to the amendment on both procedural and substantive grounds. Nothing new there. But then he adds a kicker:

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Our lawmakers forgot a lot of law. Without amending the Internal Revenue Code, it is not possible for the vaccine-injury amendments to tap revenues from the fund to serve their intended purposes. Internal Revenue Code section 9510 establishes and provides the rules for operation of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund. Sections 4131 and 4132 describe the 75-cents-per-dose excise tax that feeds the fund.
Specifically, there appear to be at least three drafting problems. First, section 9510(c)(1)(A) requires that any money disbursed from the trust fund must be in accordance with the Public Health Service Act as in effect on October 18, 2000. Because the Homeland Security Act did not amend that section, no funds can be distributed for the thimerosal cases or any cases newly covered by the amendments made by the Homeland Security Act.
Second, under section 9510(b)(3) if any amounts in the trust fund are used for ineligible purposes, the Treasury Department must cease paying funds (from excise tax revenues) into the trust fund. That is a poison pill. If any funds were paid to thimerosal victims, transfers for all vaccine-injury cases would be cut off.
Third, the Homeland Security Act does not alter the definition of taxable vaccine in code section 4132(a). That does not affect the disbursement of funds under section 9510, but it does raise the question of linking trust fund costs with trust fund benefits. If the fund's purposes are expanded to include cases against manufacturers of vaccine components, should the trust fund tax base be expanded to include separate taxation of components? (If so, that could be problematic given that the current taxable unit for the excise tax is "per dose." How would a shipment of vaccine preservative be taxed?) Or could it be ! argued that components are already effectively taxed under the current law's levy on the final product?
If Congress gets around to making code changes to amend the VICP as intended by the Homeland Security Act, it will have to consider those issues.

Oops! As the author concludes: "[T]his is a great case study in how Washington works . . . and how it doesn't." (Ellipses in original.)

P.P.S. I hope to respond to Meredith's and Wampum's criticisms of the existing studies soon.

The number of children with autism seemingly has increased dramatically in recent years. Many people have speculated that vaccinations - specifically the MMR vaccine - are causing the increase, but that allegation has not held up to scrutiny.
Recently, there has been much publicity given to allegations of a more specific link between vaccines and autism - specifically, the preservative thimerosal, which contained mercury in excess of the EPA standards for exposure and was included in vaccines given to children until 1999.
In the recently-passed Homeland Security bill, someone (Bill Frist, speculates Hesiod) inserted a provision at the last minute insulating makers of thimerosal from most of the lawsuits.
This last-minute insertion into the law has drawn much ire. Aside from general good-government concerns, the caricature of evil Republicans protecting big corporations such as Eli Lilly from the consequences of causing autism in children is far too tempting to pass up.
TAPPED has a short post on the subject which perfectly encapsulates that view, noting as an aside that the subject involves "medicines that apparently gave children autism."
There's only one problem: the caricature is probably wrong.
1) I would never want to be in the position of Dwight Meredith, father of an autistic child who wonders if sheer idiocy on the part of vaccine manufacturers and the medical establishment is responsible for his son's autism. I could certainly never deal with the topic with the level head that Mr. Meredith displays. But even Mr. Meredith is careful to note:

It is important, however, to stay focused on what is actually known about the relationship, if any, between mercury in vaccines and autism. There have been no studies of which we are aware that demonstrate that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. Thus, it would be wrong, or at least premature, to conclude that vaccines have caused autism in any child.
Some, however, have suggested that there is no evidence of a link between thimerasol and autism. That is also not true. The increase in the incidence of autism in California coincides with the increased exposure of children to mercury in the form of thimerasol in vaccines. Mercury is known to cause brain damage to some kids at some level of exposure. That is evidence of a link but it is in no way conclusive evidence of causation.

I'm no expert, but it seems that Mr. Meredith may be too generous to the evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism. The CDC hasn't heard about it yet, and an unnamed friend of Mark Kleiman cites other evidence. Chemist Derek Lowe argues against the plausibility of a link between thimerosal and autism (click here and scroll up for more). Here's a study from The Lancet (free registration required) which reaches the following conclusions:

Overall, the results of this study show that amounts of mercury in the blood of infants receiving vaccines formulated with thiomersal are well below concentrations potentially associated with toxic effects. Coupled with 60 years of experience with administration of thiomersal-containing vaccines, we conclude that the thiomersal in routine vaccines poses very little risk to full-term infants, but that thiomersal-containing vaccines should not be administered at birth to very low birthweight premature infants.

At the very least, TAPPED's offhand statement that the thimerosal-preserved vaccines in question "apparently gave children autism" is a massive overstatement, which doesn't stand up to even a cursory reading of the evidence. A stronger link may be proven (especially since, as Meredith notes, a test will occur naturally based on the fact that thimerosal was eliminated from vaccines after 1999), but the current evidence doesn't seem to provide anything close to a reliable link.
2) As Mark Kleiman's friend notes:

When Congress established the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986, it was a rare legislative acknowledgment that the tort system is incapable of serving the public interest. At the time, you may recall, vaccine manufacturers were leaving the industry, vaccine prices were skyrocketing, and vaccination rates were falling sharply. VICP created a no-fault system for vaccine-related injuries. The system is inevitably imperfect, but it's clearly served the public interest. Vaccine prices and availability improved; the number of lawsuits plummeted; program costs have been modest ($110 million a year for pre-1988 injuries; an excise tax of 75 cents per dose for post-1988 injuries); and compensation to genuine victims has been non-trivial (VICP has paid over 1500 claims averaging just under $1 million per).
But of course the trial lawyers despise no-fault systems, and in thimerosal they see an opportunity to bypass and undermine VICP. They claim that thimerosal-related injuries (if there are such things) should not be covered under VICP because the injuries don't stem from the vaccine proper but from a "contaminant." They're suing the thimerosal manufacturers, who are not covered under VICP. They're aggregating millions of claims of $1000 or less because VICP precludes suits for > $1000. And so on.
Undermining VICP can't possibly serve the public interest. Thimerosal has already been phased out of childhood vaccines. There's an effective system in place for dealing with vaccine injuries; if there is credible evidence of thimerosal-related damage, then victims should fight to have the relevant adverse events added to the VICP vaccine injury table.
There's no reason to be believe that courts can deal with this. Juries routinely accept junk science when faced with heart-rending individual cases. (E.g., epidemiological evidence does not support a link between silicone breast implants and autoimmune disease. Some solace to the bankrupt manufacturers.) The threat of huge awards and litigation costs leads to settlement of meritless cases. (Last year, the vast majority of asbestos settlements were paid to unimpaired claimants.) Plaintiffs shop for judges that have been elected by the trial lawyers and for jurisdictions (in, e.g., WV, MS, and TX) that have absurdly pro-plaintiff rules. The record shows that in mass tort situations, legal costs typically absorb 50% - 80% of judgment and settlement dollars. And the 20% - 50% that trickles down to victims and "victims" is distributed in arbitrary and unequal fashion.

I have little to add to this. Even Kleiman admits: " That the tort system does a miserable job of handling medical injuries is too clear to be worth arguing about."
Even if you believe that pharmaceutical companies are profiteering, heartless entities which deserve to be humbled - and worse, heavily regulated (I think that's a fair summation of the editorial line at The American Prospect ), wouldn't it be proper to have evidence of truly harmful malfeasance before subjecting the companies to "bet-the-company" litigation? (No one remotely familiar with the history of mass torts can deny that lawsuits such as the thimerosal-vaccine claims have the potential to destroy any company, regardless of size. Ask Dow Corning, W.R. Grace, etc.) "Due process" and all that stuff.
I agree that it was sleazy to amend the law in the last-minute, anonymous fashion at issue. But the ideas behind the amendment were perfectly defensible - and its sponsors should not have been afraid to defend those ideas. That fear was the true scandal.

UPDATE: Thanks to TAPPED for the kind words. And they do paraphrase the issue correctly, though they should say that thimerosal "was" often added to vaccines, as it has been mostly removed due to the concerns raised about potential mercury poisoning (which formed the basis for the lawsuits at issue).
A couple of notes, as long as I'm revisiting the topic. First, I was struck by the following observation in the New York Times piece about the controversy:

On July 7, 1999, at Halsey's urging, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service released a statement urging vaccine manufacturers to remove thimerosal as quickly as possible and advising pediatricians to postpone giving most newborns the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The decision, which helped to create vaccine shortages and led some babies to become infected with hepatitis B... (Emphasis added)

That consequence helps show that the removal of thimerosal was not a costless decision. I do not know if there have been any good studies done to estimate the number of babies who contracted hepatitis B but would not have done so if thimerosal-preserved vaccine had been administered. But in theory, if further studies show no link between thimerosal and mental incapacitation, the costs of removing thiremosal from vaccines may be shown to have outweighed the benefits.
Second, TAPPED reiterates:

The real scandal here, such as it is, is that that someone friendly to Eli Lilly stuck a provision in the homeland security bill to exempt Lilly from tort lawsuits just in case there turns out to be such a link.

If that was indeed the expected progression of events - i.e., if lawsuits would follow evidence of a link - I'd agree. But in reality, the lawsuits have been filed by the dozen long before any such link had been established (check out this search result for an indication). This is not atypical for the mass-tort context, either. With that in mind, it's harder to see the amendment as illegitimately depriving legitimate claimants of recourse; I'd even argue it's closer to an attempt to maintain neutrality while studies are performed to establish whether or not the link exists. (I'd argue that if studies show such a link, Congress may well repeal the amendment. But that's a different argument.)