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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2008.140376v1 98/8/1350-a    most recent Submit a response View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Baker, J. P. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Baker, J. P. Related Collections Immunization/Vaccines Prevention Other Child and Adolescent Health

Jeffrey P. Baker, MD, PhD

Correspondence: Correspondence should be sent to Jeffrey P. Baker, MD, PhD, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Box 3675 (DUMC), Durham, NC 27710 (e-mail: baker009@mc.duke.edu).

	Because this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

I appreciate Silbergeld’s balanced and thoughtful remarks. It is true that as early as the 1940s, thimerosal was recognized to cause topical hypersensitivity as measured by skin tests. The US Food and Drug Administration cited these concerns in its proposed rules on preservatives in skin tests and over-the-counter topical products in 1978 and 1982, as did some European countries that restricted thimerosal in the 1990s.^1,2 The clinical significance of this phenomenon, however, was related to contact dermatitis rather than neurotoxicity, the focus of my article and of the vaccine and autism debate.

Although more recent studies have shown that methylmercury . . . [Full Text]