Court: Thimerosal didn’t cause autism

The vaccine additive thimerosal is not to blame for autism, a special federal court has ruled in a legal battle by parents who claim that there is a connection.

The ruling was issued by the “vaccine court,” a special branch of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims established to handle claims of injury from vaccines. It may be appealed in federal court.

The parents presented expert witnesses who argued that mercury can have a variety of effects on the brain, but the ruling said none of them offered opinions on the cause of autism in the three specific cases at hand. They testified that mercury can affect a number of biological processes, including abnormal metabolism in children.

The ruling said that the parents were arguing that the effects from mercury in vaccines differ from mercury’s known effects on the brain.

The court concluded that the parents had failed to establish that their children’s condition was caused or aggravated by mercury from vaccines.

The decision that autism is not caused by thimerosal alone follows a parallel ruling in 2009 that autism is not caused by the combination of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine with thimerosal and other vaccines.