Escential--
There have already been major studies, and millions of dollars spent, in the U.S. and in Europe, not to mention other nations, that have shown consistently that there is no connection between heavy metals poisoning, vaccines, or anything in vaccines at the current time and ASD's. There have also been several meta-studies showing the same thing. It has also been shown that G.I. tract issues are no more or less in the autistic population as well, and that those issues are not part of an autistic syndrome.
So, my concern is--why reinvent the wheel? What's needed is holding school districts and politicians responsible for making sure that there are appropriate and effective therapies and aides for those in schools and to come up with pre-school programs for toddlers, and more intense programs for those who will need it, and possibly 24 hour programs that are safe, parent friendly, and supportive for the most severe cases. Check out the NIMH site to see what studies are being done, or contact those institutions who have full programs for ASDs and see what they are doing.
As for women and ASDs...I agree with you there. We are being dx as lots of things besides AS or autistic...bpd, npd, mpd, anorexic, avoidant...until we get the genetic test to dx ASD's , we won't know the true numbers. In fact, the most recent numbers put males to females with Asperger's closer to 2-1, or less than 2 to 1.
Time will tell.