James B. Adams

James B. Adams is a President's Professor at Arizona State University, where he directs the autism/Asperger's research program, though he originally taught chemical and materials engineering there. Adams also holds a post at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and is the president of the Autism Society of Greater Phoenix and the co-chair of the Autism Research Institute's scientific advisory committee. He was featured on Dateline NBC in 2006 in a story about his controversial use of chelation therapy to treat autistic children.

Career

Adams was formerly an assistant, and later associate, professor of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1989 to 1996, whereupon he became an associate professor at ASU. He became a full professor in 1998.

Research

Engineering

Adams' team at ASU works in the field of computational and materials science, studying semiconductor processing and the ideal coatings for tools used for aluminum processing using computer simulations, as well as silicon thin-film cells. In 2012, he was elected a Fellow of ASM International – The Materials Information Society.

Autism

Adams has hypothesized that heavy metals, particularly cadmium and mercury, may play a role in the pathogenesis of autism, and has advocated treatment with chelation therapy (a discredited and dangerous treatment in the context of autism ) and pioglitazone. Adams further contends that elevated testosterone levels are linked to the depletion of glutathione, which in turn results in increased susceptibility to toxic metals, citing a study published by Simon Baron-Cohen, which contains "major logical and factual flaws" according to some autism experts. Adams was on the scientific advisory board of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, a group that publicizes the purported dangers of dental amalgam despite some evidence to the contrary. Adams also claims that autistic children have an increased need for certain vitamins and minerals. As of 2025, Adams sits on the scientific advisory board of the Autism Research Institute, an organization that has historically promoted many of the same unproven or discredited autism theories and treatments as Adams himself.

In 2019, Adams and a group of other researchers published a study in which they tested microbiota transfer therapy on autistic children.

Controversial opinions

In a 2006 NBC News interview, Adams noted that acrodynia, a condition that afflicted children roughly a hundred years ago, was found to be caused by mercury-containing teething powders, and that "symptoms of acrodynia were pretty similar to symptoms of autism". However, multiple sources, including a paper published in the medical journal Pediatrics, have noted major differences between the symptoms of mercury poisoning and those of autism.

In 2016, Adams came under fire for posting an advertisement for the widely criticized anti-vaccine film Vaxxed on one of ASU's official Facebook pages. Adams subsequently edited the post to include a disclaimer that the movie "represents only one side of the MMR-vaccine controversy", and admitted that he had not actually seen it. He later deleted the post altogether at ASU's request, but continued to promote the film in his capacity as president of the Autism Society of Greater Phoenix. While declining to describe himself as "anti-vaccine", Adams told a reporter that he does believe vaccines, in "rare cases", may cause autism—despite a 20-year accumulation of scientific evidence to the contrary. He became interested in autism when his daughter, Kim, was diagnosed with the disorder in 1994; he has stated he suspects this occurred because of her vaccinations and stopped vaccinating her after her autism diagnosis.

Selected publications

Engineering

Autism