Nice to see the vaccine "experts" at Wired magazine grudgingly conceding that the hype over mercury preservative in vaccines seems to have been overblown and that repeated, good quality scientific studies have found no link between vaccines and autism.

Still, they can't resist false and exaggerated statements like saying that kids were "pumped full of mercury" in excess of federal guidelines.

The government limits did not apply to ethyl mercury, the type found in thimerosal preservative. We now have solid evidence that this type of mercury is cleared from the human body quickly, so that it never gets a chance to build up to a toxic level - good news for efforts to reinforce public confidence in life-saving vaccines, bad news for conspiracy-minded antivaxers.

Neither of the quotes from the health experts cited in the Wired article say that thimerosal shouldn't have been removed from vaccines as a precaution, despite the premise of the article. What they are saying is that thimerosal's removal did create an impression among some people that it had to have been dangerous, and left an opportunity for conspiracy-minded people to attack vaccination. That _did_ happen.

Fortunately it looks like public opinion, reassured by all the scientific evidence in support of vaccines, is swinging away from the antivaxers, who keep desperately trying to come up with new theories about vaccines and autism, but whose tactics appear increasingly threadbare and obvious.