For instance, a September 1999, press release by vaccine maker Merck declared: "Now, Merck's infant vaccine line is free of all preservatives." 

However, On March 8, 2005, the LA Times reported that "Merck & Co continued to supply infant vaccine containing a mercury preservative for two years after declaring that it had eliminated the chemical."

In fact, Merck continued to distribute vaccines containing thimerosal until October 2001, according to a June, 2003 letter from the FDA to Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL), a doctor by calling, in response to an inquiry.  Dr Weldon called what Merck did "misleading." 

"You had people literally into 2002," he told the Times, "getting shots with mercury, having been told it was all taken out in 1999."

To see if vaccines were indeed thimerosal free, last year the group, Health Advocacy in the Public Interest (HAPI), sent four vials of different vaccines to be tested for mercury content to Doctor's Data, an independent lab, which specializes in heavy metal testing. 

The tests found that all four contained mercury, despite the claim by 2 companies that their vaccines were completely mercury-free. According to HAPI, all four vaccines also contained aluminum which greatly increases the toxicity of mercury for causing neuronal death in the brain.

In fact, during further investigation, HAPI discovered that mercury-based thimerosal was still being used during the production process for most vaccines.  The drug makers claim that after production, they filter the preservative out of the final vaccines. 

However, heavy metal expert, Dr Boyd Haley, PhD, the Chemistry Department Chair at the University of Kentucky, told HAPI that its not possible to remove all of the thimerosal because mercury binds to the antigenic protein in the vaccine and cannot be filtered out completely.  

Experts says, a drastic decline in autism will not be seen due to the fact that the drug makers misled the public about when thimerosal was actually eliminated from vaccines.  Because the FDA has never ordered a recall of the vaccines previously manufactured and shipped all over the country, many mercury-laced vaccines remained in the inventories of health care facilities and some had an expiration date as late as September, 2005.

In addition, pregnant women and their unborn infants, are still being injected with a full dose of thimerosal in flu vaccines. The CDC has ignored the tremendous amount of scientific evidence documenting the injuries from mercury-laced vaccines and has continued to recommend flu vaccines for all pregnant women and children over 6 months old.

Back in 2002, the research team of David and Mark Geier, released a study based on an analysis of tens of millions of vaccines given to during the 1990s, and presented epidemiologic evidence that demonstrated the association of the increase in thimerosal in vaccines with neurodevelopmental disorders. 

The Geier's analysis of the government's "Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System" database showed statistical increases in the incidence rate of autism, mental retardation, and speech disorders in children receiving thimerosal-containing diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccines, when compared with those who received thimerosal-free vaccines. 

According to the Geiers, the usual course of DTaP vaccine consists of primary immunizations administered at two, four, and six months, followed up by booster doses at 18 months and five years.

By analyzing the database, the Geiers determined that there were a total of 6575 adverse reaction reports with the DTaP thimerosal-vaccines, compared to only 1516 adverse reaction reports with thimerosal-free vaccines.

In one of their more recent studies in 2005, the Geiers assessed thimerosal exposure in about 110,000 children and found a statistically significant association between exposure to thimerosal and a host of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism, tics, attention deficit disorders, and speech and language delays.

The public remains largely unaware of the autism epidemic because people hardly ever see autistic children out in the community. Aside from taking the children to school, parents seldom take them anywhere because of the difficulty of trying to control them outside of a routine environment.

The increasingly number of children with this disorder is forcing public school systems to provide more special education classrooms to meet their needs. Autistics are the fastest-growing segment of special ed students and schools lack the trained professionals with knowledge of how to work with autistic children. The school systems were caught completely unprepared for this epidemic. 

Unlike normal children, children with autism do not learn by watching other people and must be taught even the simplest skills such as making eye contact, waiting in line, following directions or how to hold a conversation which often requires one-to-one mentoring. 

Skills, behaviors and abilities vary with each child and about half of autistic kids have few or no language skills. Some kids also suffer from other problems that impair learning such as hearing loss or epilepsy and many are not toilet trained.

In a program that serves Minneapolis students, each classroom usually has 6 students and requires one licensed special ed teacher and two special ed assistants. Toddler classrooms are smaller with 4 students and require one licensed special ed teacher and one special ed assistant. 

Services by speech and language clinicians, occupational therapists, social workers and adapted physical education teachers are also available at each site based on student needs. And the educational services reflect only part of the expense. Other costs include tuition for summer school to help kids retain skills, transportation costs, and psychological and behavioral evaluations.

In 2003, the California National School Board Association reported that the number of autistic students in California had doubled over four years and represented 13% of the state's student population of 20,377, at a cost of up to $60,000 per student.

In July 2005, a San Mateo County California civil grand jury released a report warning that increasing numbers of autistic children and the high cost of their education was causing a significant drain of resources for school districts.