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Join
the Cherab
Foundation's
free email support discussion list: For
information about communication impairments, see Cherab's
partner informational site, Speechville
Express Read more about The Late Talker, a new book for families of children who are late to talk. |
July
9,
2001 Mercury and its Role in Communications Disorders Location: Children's Specialized Hospital (Click for directions) Date:
July 9, 2001 Mountainside:
150 New Providence Road, Mountainside, NJ 07092-2590 Because
we have reached our limit in the auditorium at many meetings, it is important
to RSVP. Please RSVP to kiddietalk@yahoo.com , or leave
a message at (732) 871- 6013. (At the holiday party we were about 70
people over the limit of the auditorium!)
Speaker: Sallie Bernard, President of ARC Research Mercury (Hg) is considered one of the world’s most dangerous chemicals. Current thinking suggests that exposure to mercury is primarily from seafood contamination and rare catastrophic events. Recently, another common source of exposure has been identified. Thimerosal (TMS), a preservative found in many infant vaccines, contains 49.6% ethyl mercury (EtHg) by weight. As part of an ongoing review, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in 1999 that infants who received multiple TMS-preserved vaccines may have been exposed to cumulative Hg in excess of Federal safety guidelines. Neurobehavioral alterations, especially to the more susceptible fetus and infant, are known to occur after relatively low dose exposures to organic mercury compounds. Specifically, exposure to low levels of mercury during critical stages of development has been associated with neurological impairments and diagnosable disorders in children, including ADD and attentional problems, learning disorders and difficulties, speech and language delays and deficits, motor impairments, and sensory disturbances. Looking at communication disturbances in particular, it has been shown that mercury-exposed children and adults show marked difficulties with speech. In milder cases scores on language tests may be lower than those of unexposed controls, and verbal IQ is often lower than performance IQ on standard intelligence tests. Articulation problems, from slow, slurred word production to an inability to generate meaningful speech, are common. Some exposed children may fail to develop language, may gain language and then lose the ability, or may present with severe language deficits. There are documented cases of word retrieval difficulties. Mercury also interferes with hearing, particularly in the speech range, so that an individual can hear pure tones perfectly but may fail to understand the spoken word. This presentation provides an overview of the effects of mercury exposure on children, with special focus on the communication domain. It describes the exposure to children from pediatric immunizations and presents recent findings on what impact this exposure may have had on our children.Speaker Biography: Sallie Bernard is President of ARC Research, a market research and marketing consulting firm located in Cranford, NJ. She is the parent of triplet boys, one of whom has autism. Sallie is a Board Member of Cure Autism Now, the Executive Director of New Jersey Cure Autism Now, and a co-founder and Executive Director of Safe Minds. Safe Minds (http://www.safeminds.org/) was established to investigate the association between thimerosal in vaccines and other medical products and the onset of neurodevelopmental and learning disorders. Sallie is the lead author of “Autism: a Unique Form of Mercury Poisoning” and a co-author of “Predicted Mercury Concentrations in Hair from Infant Immunizations: Cause for Concern.” |
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Cherab
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