RFK Jr, Autism & The Anti-Science Crowd

It's truly sad to see a strong environmental advocate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. get swept up by junk science. His recent article in Salon and Rolling Stone about the supposed link between autism and vaccines w/thimerosal, a preservative which contains mercury seems to show that he doesn't understand the difference between causation and correlation.

A few points:

(Almost) no thimerosal has been used in vaccines Canada or the Netherlands in 10 years, yet the rate of autism has not dropped in those countries, as you would clearly expect if that were the cause.

He speaks about the conflict of interest with the pharmaceuticals industry research and vaccine makers, which is a fair point to consider. However, his expert researchers, the Geiers, make their living as expert witnesses in torts against the vaccine manufacturers. Clearly they are no less the disinterested research scientists.

This is all extremely well analyzed over at Orac Knows.

UPDATE: Even more excellent analysis over at Skeptico.