A new AP story out yesterday, based on an April report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders, found that autism can be diagnosed in children before the age of 1 year.

What is most interesting about this AP story as well as the CDC report is that these children are often immunization-naive. They have not yet received vaccinations, much less vaccinations containing thiomersal/thimerosal. While the belief that thimerosal is the root cause of all cases of autism still persists in parental circles, this study would appear to undermine those assertions. How can thimerosal cause autism in patients that haven’t been vaccinated?

This study would seem to be the latest evidence in a long-string of studies disproving the popular thimerosal-autism myth/belief. Even some studies funded by proponents of the thimerosal-autism myth have been able to only demonstrate concurrence, not causality.

Since 2002, thiomersal/thimerosal is being phased out of pediatric vaccines in the United States. However, if the assertions of groups supporting this idea are correct, you would begin to see a decline in autism diagnosis over the last few years as thimerosal usage is scaled back. That hasn’t happened. Quite the opposite seems to be true – autism incidence continues to increase.

Now, I’m not going to argue that thimerosal might actually protect against autism (making absurd claims of causality based on limited observations led to the rise of the thimerosal myth in the first place). However, if we do not begin to see noticeable declines autism rates in the U.S. soon, it would seriously challenge the credibility of the groups advancing these ideas.