Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Looking over Holford’s New Optimum Nutrition for the Mind (Piatkus 2007 edition), one passage in the section on mercury stood out as especially odd. I’ll quote at length, so that you can see the context of Holford’s statement:

In one analysis of American babies six months old, the average intake of mercury was 111.3mcg. Tiny amounts of mercury have been shown to promote abnormal methylation. Although not proven, this provides a plausible explanation as to why the MMR vaccine could trigger autism. (pp. 100-1, emphasis added)

I am not at all sure why Holford would discuss MMR in the context of a discussion of mercury: this vaccine Does Not Contain Mercury, Thiomersal, Thimerosal and It Never Has. I am therefore struggling to figure out what ‘plausible explanation’ Holford is referring to. Do readers have any suggestions? Holford can’t believe that MMR contains (or previously contained) mercury, can he?

Just to be clear, MMR is a live vaccine. You would never add a preservative like thimerosal to it for much the same reason as you wouldn’t pasteurise live yogurt: this would ‘kill’ the vaccine, and render it ineffective. The Holford statement quoted above is, at best, misleading: there is no mercury in MMR, so mercury could not be involved in any alleged MMR/autism link. We have argued here on Holford Watch that Holford owes those who trust his work “a better overview of the research that purports to find a link between MMR and autism”. At the very least, he owes it to those who read his books and trust his advice to make clear that MMR does not contain, and never has contained, mercury or thimerosal.