Autism, mercury and...Meniere's?

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/autism-mercury-and-melanin-can-you-hear-me-now.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ageofautism+%28AGE+OF+AUTISM%29

I had not known that mercury was ototoxic, but:


Introduction to neurobehavioral toxicology: food and environment HERE

"The ototoxic effects by mercury differ from the effects by many other compunds like aminoglycoside antibiotics and cis-platinum by causing the most severe damage to the apical cords of the cochlea related to low-frequency hearing"......."In addition degenerations of efferent and afferent nerve endings were found as well as vacuolization of marginal cells in the stria vascularis."
More specifically to Ethyl Mercury/Thimerosal:

Ototoxicity HERE

"Cortisporin Otic Suspension contains neomycin sulfate, polymyxin B, hydrocortisone, cetyl alcohol, propylene glycol, polysorbate 80 and thimerosal."............"Following the application of 0.5 mL of Cortisporin Otic Suspension to the middle ear of these experimental animals degeneration of all inner and outer hair cells throughout the cochlea, severe damage to the stria vascularis, and moderate to severe damage of the vestibular receptor organs were observed."

 

I remember playing with mercury all the time in high school.

Used to be fun to spill it out and play with it.

 

I think there are a ton of things natural (like mercury and herpes virus) and manmade (like gentamicin) that can kill a person and/or his ear. Practically anything that gets in that tiny space can do damage. There is just no room for anything that is not supposed to be there.

 

June, mercury can kill you just by touching it: http://ehs.okstate.edu/news/KAREN.HTM
Dartmouth Researcher Dies from Mercury Poisoining

Associated Press 06/11/97 06/11/97 01:38 AM ET
HANOVER, N.H. (AP) - A Dartmouth College scientist whose specialty was the dangers of heavy metals died of mercury poisoning this week, 10 months after as little as a drop of a rare toxic compound apparently seeped through her rubber gloves.

Mercury is not something that human beings are "naturally" exposed to. It's not a question of whether or not there is room in the ear for mercury.

What if mercury (from vaccines, tuna, or other exposure--like playing with it in high school) somehow binds to or links with herpes virus in the bloodstream, and together they end up in the ear?

Carolyn, I would be VERY curious to find out if the people in your high school class who played with mercury are now suffering from severe autoimmune disorders? Can you find out?

2 of the 11 kids originally described in Kanner's landmark paper on autism (1943) had parents who were exposed to ethyl mercury during the mother's pregnancy:

" Case 2 was the son of a plant pathologist working with fungicides at the federal government’s Beltsville Agriculture Research Center in Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital. His extensive archive shows him working with mercury compounds from the beginning of his career, and contains a pamphlet for the ethyl mercury seed disinfectant Ceresan, a dust that could easily have gotten on his clothes and exposed his pregnant wife or newborn infant. (She had kidney trouble during pregnancy, which can be a sign of mercury poisoning.) The father’s resume shows him working with Ceresan when his son was born.

-- Case 3 was the son of a forestry professor whose research places him in a laboratory where early tests on wood preservation were being conducted with Lignasan, also an ethyl mercury compound.

-- And Case 7, as we have described, was the pediatrician and vaccine advocate for the Public Health Service. Several others in the first 11 had medical backgrounds that could put them at risk of medicinal mercury exposure."
--Age of Autism, Olmstead and Blaxill

 

Look up Mad Hatter

 

Yup, that too.

 

TM, I don't keep in touch with anybody from high school so I have no idea and I doubt that stats would be kept on that. If it was in my high school in 1978 to 1982 it was probably in plenty of other schools too.

I remember the bottle, i'm guessing it would have held about 500 to 700 ml and it was super heavy to lift. We would pour it out and chase the little balls around the desk.

Scary stuff when you think about it now.

 

Main article: Mad as a hatter
Although the name "Mad Hatter" was undoubtedly inspired by the phrase "as mad as a hatter", there is some uncertainty as to the origins of this phrase. Mercury was used in the process of curing pelts used in some hats, making it impossible for hatters to avoid inhaling the mercury fumes given off during the hat making process; hatters and mill workers thus often suffered mercury poisoning, causing neurological damage, including confused speech and distorted vision.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Hatter

 

http://corrosion-doctors.org/Elements-Toxic/Mercury-mad-hatter.htm

"Eventually the use of solutions of mercuric nitrate was widespread in the felt industry, and mercury poisoning became endemic. (reference) Dementia and erethism were indeed a common ailment among 19th Century hatmakers.

The crazy Mad Hatter of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is becoming widely associated with the effects of Mercury on behavior as well as physiology. Mercury was used to process the felt hats used in England around Lewis' time. Erratic, flamboyant behavior was one of the most evident alterations caused by mercury. (Others included excessive drooling, mood swings, various debilities.)"

 

So? Really, I don't plan to be messing with mercury nor do I advocate it in trace amounts in our foodstuffs. It's just that I could say that for all kinds of things. It's just that mercury has caught the imagination where as snakeroot (a poisonous plant probably growing very near to you - or at least to me) has not caught the imagination. Do you know what happens if cows get in the snakeroot? No one is seeing that that doesn't happen. No agency, no advocacy group. It's killed before and it can kill again. Poisons abound in the environment. I don't advocate exposing ourselvses intentionally and unnecessarily but they have always been there and always will be - if not mercury in fish - something else. I am all for implementing regulations to protect ourselves as best we can from mercury and typhoid and whooping cough and copper and cadmium where it shouldn't be and on and on and on but just because a poison exists and is somewhere around me doesn't make it the issue with my ears. Otherwise there would be a million causes of menieres. In general I agree with you until you start to apply cause and effect. ie the cause is I heard of this new dangerous thing, therefore it is the source of my problems. I don't mean to dismiss your observations because you have a lot of good points to make but I think perspective is everything in figuring stuff out. In this case, I think things are not in the right perspective.

 

I'm just going to go ahead and exercise discretion here and keep my comments to myself.

 

Mercurochrome is bad? That may be my problem as well. I should have listened to my grandmother who used camphor for everything or my grandfather who used iodine or my ggrandfather who just doused everything in turpentine (it works).

 

for the curious - from wisegeek - this is where mercurochrome went

"There are two issues with Mercurochrome™ and other merbromin products. The first is that they contain mercury, a metal which is known to be poisonous. Although no one has definitively linked Mercurochrome™ to mercury poisoning, presumably because the metal is only present in trace amounts, many people prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to mercury. The FDA originally grandfathered the drug in, and later decided that it should be banned until additional research could prove that it was safe for use.

The second issue with Mercurochrome™ is the color. The dark reddish to brown stain covers up the natural color of the skin around the wound, making it hard to detect the early signs of infection. Skin which is red and irritated will be difficult to see under a coating of Mercurochrome™, which means that the infection could be missed until it grows much larger. Clear topical antiseptics or antiseptics which do not stain are preferred so that wounds can be clearly visualized."

I thought they got rid of it because no one could spell it.

 

How about in amounts exceeding the EPA limit, injected directly into you? Like in a flu shot?

 

So that is what is wrong with me as well. We even painted extra on ourselves as a kind of war paint or cheap tattoos.

 

I just remember that Mercurochrome stung like hell.

 

ethylmercury vs. methylmercury. You know that.

 

Still alive and kicking. Ears went bad before flu shots, cell phones, and anything else I can think of. Could be the amalgam fillings but everyone I know has more than I do and yet they hear. It's like when the dr told me to go on a low salt diet. DH said, if it was salt he'd be stone deaf and I'd have perfect hearing. These popular topics do not coincide with my own experience.

 

Can I use this excuse to say that those of us who react are doing what we are supposed to do, waking up the immune system, getting it to id the substance and be on alert if the virus comes our way.

 

I am sure it was. I was just using the mention of flu shots as an excuse to go off on my own tangent about so called 'reactions' to flu shots.

I don't know if mine was or not. I got the bad shot giver nurse and was just trying not to wince.