Background

Autism spectrum disorder is a range of neurodevelopment disorders that affect the development of the brain in social and communication skills, and occurs before the child turns three (NINDS 2009).  The cause of autism is unknown but many people believe it is due to unsafe vaccines such as MMR or thimerosal, a small amount of mercury that is found in some vaccines.  In the late 1960’s a man named Maurice Hillman decided to combine the measles, mumps, rubella shot into one vaccine called the MMR, which was released in the United States in 1971 and the United Kingdom in 1988 (Offit 2007). Since the 1930s, Therimosal, a mercury- containing preservative, has been used in vaccines and other products. Other than redness and swelling at the injection site, no other harmful effects have been reported. Therimosal was eliminated from vaccines due to precautionary measures (Therimosal).