Thimerosal

Majikthise has a good post up on the Thimerosal/autism issue, following some harsh posts by Orac in response to this Salon article. Orac also takes some time out to respond to a query of mine.

The case against a thimerosal/autism connection looks very strong. (He said, having read no actual scientific research on the subject.) The failure of autism rates to decline after countries stopped using thimerosal is particularly damning.

I'm thinking of using this as a problem for my freshman level scientific methods course. I'd give the students the Salon piece and Orac's first reply, and ask them to get to the bottom of the issue. Students who can find all of the relevant primary sources and evaluate them intelligently would get the highest grade. Of course, doing this is just making more work for myself, because now I have to track down all the relevant primary sources and evaluate them intelligently. Perhaps I should just give students credit for reading Majikthise.