Mercury Rising

In June 2006, on the first day of the summer meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, more than 100 protesters crowded the sidewalks outside the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.Organized by a nonprofit called Moms Against Mercury, the mob was made up mostly of people who believe that thimerosal—a mercury-based vaccine preservative—is responsible for the dramatic rise in autism over the past two decades.As Paul Offit, a vaccine expert who served on the committee, tried to make his way through the crowd, one of the protestors screamed at him through a megaphone: "The devil—it's the devil!" One protester held a sign that read "TERRORIST" with a photo of Offit's face. Just before Offit reached the door, a man dressed in a prison uniform grabbed Offit's jacket. "It was harrowing," Offit recalls.Read more at...Nature Medicine, August 2007.