Lyn Redwood

Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN, CRNP, is a nurse practitioner specializing in pediatrics and women's health care for over twentyfive years, and the president and co-founder of Safe Minds. Redwood is a board of health member for Fayette County, Georgia, and a Tyrone, Georgia, town councilmember. Redwood is a board member of the National Autism Association. Redwood has testified before the United States House of Representatives Government Reform Committee, where she presented 'Mercury in Medicine: Are We Taking Unnecessary Risks?'

Redwood co-authored the treatise "Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Toxicity", that was published in Neurotoxicology, Medical Hypotheses, Molecular Psychiatry, Mothering and Autism-Asperger's Digest. She has appeared on Good Morning America, the Montel Williams Show, and has been interviewed by U.S. News and World Report, Wired Magazine, and People. Redwood is prominently featured in the award winning book by David Kirby, Evidence of Harm.

In 1999, Redwood's son, Will, was diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), not otherwise specified. After calculating the level of mercury exposure her son had received from multiple vaccines containing thimerosal (49% ethylmercury by weight), Redwood determined that her son had been exposed to levels 125 times the EPA Federal Safety guidelines.

Education
Redwood earned her bachelor of science in nursing, and her masters of science in community health nursing.

Safe Minds
The Coalition for SafeMinds was founded by Redwood and other parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, including Sallie Bernard and Mark Blaxill. SafeMinds was organized to raise awareness, support research, change policy and focus national attention on the growing evidence of a link between mercury poisoning and neurological disorders such as autism, attention deficit disorder, language delay and learning difficulties. In April, 2000, SafeMinds released the first definitive review of the link between mercury and autism spectrum disorders, which sought to demonstrate how such disorders mirror mercury poisoning. The resulting report, Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning (Bernard, Enayati, Redwood, Roger, Binstock) is recognized as a cornerstone document to the discourse on medical mercury exposure and neurotoxicity and its adverse effects on health.

The work of SafeMinds' parent advocate founders is documented in several highly publicized journalistic reports including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s 2005 Rolling Stone article "Deadly Immunity", and David Kirby 2005 book, Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy. Kirby's book has since been opted for a movie by Participant Productions.

Evidence of Harm
David Kirby's Evidence of Harm highlights the stories behind the founding of Safe Minds. In November 2002, Kirby learned of 'the thimerosal theory' while investigating autism treatments for an article he was writing. Evidence of Harm relates the story of SafeMinds parents Lyn Redwood, Sallie Bernard, Liz Birt, Albert Enayati, Heidi Roger, and Mark Blaxill. Kirby gives credit to these parents for taking on government agencies and the drug companies, and provides insight into the reasons that such parents look askance at the credibility of evidence put forward by mainstream medical authorities to either explain or falsify the explosion in autism cases in recent years.

Danish study criticized
Redwood and Safe Minds have criticized a 2003 Danish study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that found no relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. Redwood and Safe Minds re-analyzed the study's dataset, and claimed the data had been intentionally misinterpreted Redwood also alleged conflicts of interest on the part of the researchers, given the authors' employment with the manufacturer and promoter of vaccines in Denmark, Statens Serum Institute.