Olmsted on Autism: Thanks a lot, Columbus.

By Dan Olmsted

Washington, Oct. 8 -- Did you know that in all probability we have Christopher Columbus to thank for the big fat dose of mercury being injected every day into pregnant women, infants and old folks this time of year?

Among the goodies Columbus and his sailors brought back from the New World was, almost certainly, a nasty little bug called syphilis. Although the origins of syphilis have been disputed for centuries, the timing seems an unlikely coincidence. The Pox, as it was called, broke out soon after his voyages; in recent years, the discovery of pre-Columbian cases of syphilis in disinterred remains from the New World -- but not from Europe -- have pretty much clinched the argument.

In any event, the new plague was so virulent and repulsive that the "doctors" of the day threw whatever they could at it. Here, from Deborah Hayden's superb book "Pox" is a contemporary description: "The purulent pustules spread in a circle, and there is an abundance of the most virulent lupus. The signs of the sickness are these: there are itching sensations and an unpleasant pain in the joints; there is a rapidly increasing fever; the skin is inflamed with revolting scabs, and is completely covered with swellings and tubercules which are initially of a livid red colour, and then become blacker. After a few days a sanguine humour oozes out ..."

And so on. I'll spare you the noses falling off and the bones melting. The point is that anything that worked seemed worth trying -- and mercury appeared to work. Mercury was already considered King Mercury from its prominent place in alchemy, and in fact it was the alchemist Paracelsus who helped popularize mercury treatment as a cure-all. Starting in 1497 mercury became a key part of Western medicine.

Since then, syphilis has been conquered by penicillin, and alchemy has been conquered by ... well, by common sense. But King Mercury is still lording it over us, in the form of a medical and public health establishment that seems oblivious to the truth about the 15th century's wonder drug. By now we've gotten lead out of gasoline, all kinds of toxic stuff out of agricultural chemicals, and pregnant mothers can't have a sip of wine for fear of damaging the fetus.

But mercury somehow gets a free pass, despite its documented history of causing brain and neurodevelopmental castrophes from pink's to Minimata. It's kind of ironic that Columbus Day comes right at the height of pressure to get flu shots, most of which contain mercury despite the Public Heath Service's 1999 request that drug companies phase mercury out of vaccines received by children. (Based on a dubious CDC study, Dr. Paul Offit now proclaims in the New England Journal of Medicine that the whole idea of phasing mercury out of vaccines in the first place was mistaken and created unnecessary worry.) Then there was last week's recommendation that pregnant women should eat plenty o' fish, never mind the mercury.

  And a Senate panel, while clearing officials of misconduct in investigating vaccine safety, did acknowledge that yes, indeed, America is sending mercury-laced vaccines to the developing world -- the same kind we (mostly) phased out here. You see, since mercury is actually SAFE, there's no reason not to give it to everybody but us. And remember, there are six billion people out there who are not us.

So here we are, half a millenium after mercury first made its way into medicine, shilling for it like the alchemists of old. Given the progress we've made, we might as well be living in the Middle Ages, waiting for that bubbling cauldron of mercury to turn into gold.