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Mercury Exposure in Children With Autistic Spectrum Disorder: Case-Control Study

Division of Neurodevelopmental Paediatrics The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Virginia Wong, MBBS, FHKAM, FRCP(Lond, Edinb), FRCPCH

Division of Neurodevelopmental Paediatrics The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, venwong{at}hkucc.hku.hk

Marco Ho, MBBS, FHKAM

Division of Neurodevelopmental Paediatrics The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Joseph Lee, PhD

Division of Clinical Biochemistry Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong

Wilfred Wong, BSc

Division of Neurodevelopmental Paediatrics The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Although mercury has been proven to be a neurotoxicant, there is a lack of data to evaluate the causal relationship between mercury and autism. We aim to see if there is increased mercury exposure in children with autistic spectrum disorder. We performed a cross-sectional cohort study over a 5-month period in 2000 to compare the hair and blood mercury levels of children with autistic spectrum disorder (n = 82; mean age 7.2 years) and a control group of normal children (n = 55; mean age 7.8 years). There was no difference in the mean mercury levels. The mean blood mercury levels of the autistic and control groups were 19.53 and 17.68 nmol/L, respectively (P = .15), and the mean hair mercury levels of the autistic and control groups were 2.26 and 2.07 ppm, respectively (P = .79). Thus, the results from our cohort study with similar environmental mercury exposure indicate that there is no causal relationship between mercury as an environmental neurotoxin and autism. (J Child Neurol 2004;19:431-434).

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