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New Jersey legislators have agreed to consider a bill that would effectively phase-out children’s vaccines containing mercury by 2009.

Mercury is a toxic element sometimes used in vaccines. For the past several years, scientists have conducted studies to determine whether or not there is a link between the poisonous substance and autism.

New Jersey is the latest state to engage in the heated debate over this issue. Several states have already passed legislation, and a federal bill is pending.

Central to the issue is the flu vaccine administered to children, which is the only vaccine still containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal.

Many suspect that an aggressive childhood vaccination campaign undertaken in the 1990’s has caused the recent surge in childhood autism and other neurological disorders. Prior to 1990, children received only 3 vaccines. By the late 1990’s, the number of vaccines recommended by the CDC had increased more than sevenfold.

Many of the CDC recommended vaccines contained mercury, with more than 40 million children receiving such vaccines over the course of the 1990’s. Since that time, the rate of autism has skyrocketed. An estimated one in 166 children in the United States is diagnosed with autism.

While no definitive link has been established, some studies show a direct relationship. One such study was published in the March 10th issue of the Journal of American Physicians.

According to the findings, the rates of autism and other childhood neurological disorders dropped significantly – 35 percent – when mercury was removed from the vaccine. These findings underscore the potential dangers of vaccines containing mercury, despite the government’s reluctance to take a definitive stance on the issue.

The New Jersey bill reached the legislative committee in March but legislators sat on the measure until a recent lobbying effort by parents and other advocates urged them to reconsider it.

One impassioned father remarked, “We do not know what causes autism, but what we do know is that mercury is a poison. In order to move forward to prevent anything else from happening in the future, we need to look into making vaccines safer.”

Overall, advocates are optimistic about the bill’s potential for success.