Jun 17, 2008

David Kirby on Vaccines and Autism

David Kirby, author of Evidence of Harm, has made a public request for all critics of the mercury and autism link to come to one of his upcoming discussions. According to an article published on the Huffington Post Blog, “I sincerely encourage any and all vaccine-autism skeptics, critics, agnostics and cynics living in the northeastern US to please consider attending one of these talks, armed with all of your most pointed, difficult and critical questions.”

Kirby will be speaking at Brown University on June 19, 2008 from 6:30 – 9:00 pm at the Salomon Center in Room 101. On Thursday, June 26, 2008, Kirby will be speaking at the New York University School of Law in Tishman Auditorium. His third discussion will be held on Friday, June 27, 2008 at Northeastern University. The discussion at Northeastern will be held at the Behrakis Health Science Building in room 10.

Kirby’s talking points include the Poling case, mitochondrial issues in regressive autism, new research, political statements regarding the autism epidemics and new study results correlating autism with heavy metal toxicity. While I am nowhere near the areas of his discussions, I am interested in seeing what becomes of them.

The vaccine/autism debate is hotly contested by those on both sides of the issue. Whether autism can be caused by vaccines containing mercury or whether heavy metal toxicity from these vaccines cause autistic-like symptoms may take some time to prove. Whatever the case, Kirby’s discussions will likely lead to lively debate on the issue.