Gluten, a mixture of proteins found in wheat that is difficult for some to digest, was the first to go. By the end of three weeks, Gannon transformed from a child who mumbled but rarely spoke to one who spoke in sentences. Among his first to his mother: "I love you."

"I will never forget it. I had said it so many times before to him and I never got a reaction. I got a grunt. It was like he actually heard me for the first time. I just froze. I thought OK -- we are on the right track," Scheer said.
And like many parents of autistic children, Scheer became a believer in biomedical treatments for the disease, which affects one in 150 children in America.
Biomedical treatments -- such as diet changes, vitamin supplements, chelation and hyperbaric oxygen chambers -- are the focus of the first International Conference on Autism Spectrum Disorders being held Friday through Sunday in Novi. About 200 people from across the Midwest are registered to attend the conference, which includes specialists from around the world.

Many vaccines licensed in Canada contain no thimerosal. Such vaccines are single-dose preparations in which thimerosal has not been used in any part of the manufacturing process. Other vaccines may contain trace amounts of thimerosal ( < 0.5 µg) if the preservative has been used in the production process, but have no added thimerosal. An example is one of the formulations of EngerixB™. A third group of vaccines have thimerosal added as a preservative. Such vaccines are typically those supplied in multi-dose vials, with thimerosal added in varying concentrations to prevent contamination with other serious infectious agents. Many of these vaccines are not in common use, but some, like influenza vaccine, are administered to millions of people in Canada with no evident adverse effect.

In Canada, the vaccines currently used in routine infant immunization do not contain thimerosal (see Table 1). Some hepatitis B vaccines licensed in Canada do, but one formulation with no thimerosal and another with only trace amounts are now available in Canada, and NACI recommends their use in infants preferentially. The two hepatitis B vaccines in which thimerosal is added as a preservative are gradually being phased out. Influenza vaccine also contains thimerosal but is only recommended for use in Canada for those infants > 6 months of age. The other vaccines licensed in Canada that contain thimerosal are primarily used for people travelling to developing countries and are not routinely administered to infants.

The provincial government is funding the new vaccine for all infants at their two-, four- and six-month vaccination visits.

The Infanrix-hexa vaccine was approved for use in Canada in 2004, but originally, it contained thimerosal as a preservative. Because of fears (since disproved) that the preservative was linked to adverse outcomes like autism, B.C. public health officials held off until a thimerosal-free formulation was available.

“This was based on a desire to maintain public confidence in vaccines because of ongoing concerns about the safety of the mercury-based preservative, despite the demonstrated lack of association with adverse outcomes including autism spectrum disorders,” Naus said in a report to doctors in the B.C Medical Journal.