Dr. Steven Novella

So we're trying to infer this from his shift in public statements.

I think it's that pathway where once thimerosal, which is the mercury-containing preservative that was more commonly used in vaccines, mainly just multi-dose vaccines, but in 2002 they were removed from the standard vaccine schedule in the United States.

But at the time, the 1990s was sort of the big anti-thimerosal move within the anti-vax movement.

And that's when he... And they were saying, this is mercury toxicity.

Vaccine poisoning is mercury toxicity.

I think that... And his blaming of autism spike was, he was saying, due to mercury.

Yes.

And it's mercury in vaccines.

So we just shifted from mercury in general to vaccines, mercury in vaccines.

And then now there's no mercury.

To vaccines.

That's the thing.

This is one of the great stories.

Again, what you have the advantage of doing this for so long is that in 2000, talking with the anti-vaxxers, including people like Kirby, who wrote a book about mercury in vaccines,

And they all were predicting that autism rates were going to crater.

They were going to plummet once we took thimerosal out of vaccines.

Because, of course, the thimerosal is causing the mercury.

If you remove the cause, the effect should go away.

And, of course, the scientists were saying, no, it's not.

It's not what's causing it.