Editor's note: Readers with questions of the what's-going-on-in-northeastern-South-Dakota variety called the American News Line recently. Those questions - which may have been edited - and the answers appear below.

Q. What is the drug that held up the Homeland Security bill? Sen. Tom Daschle says it can cause childhood autism?

A. Actually, there were several drugs, mostly childhood vaccines, that temporarily held up passage of the homeland security bill.

The legislation approved last month that created a Homeland Security Department included language that exempts drug manufacturers from any liability for the manufacturing, sale and use of defective vaccines and pharmaceutical products.

Parents of children with autism demanded that the stipulations regarding certain childhood vaccines be dropped from the bill because of evidence the vaccines actually trigger the neurological disorder.

The legislation was signed into law by President Bush, though Republicans in Congress did assure the parents that their concerns would be further explored in 2003.

There are lawsuits pending that thimerosal in the suspect vaccines may have a link to autism. There's also a feeling that the vaccines' high content of ethyl-mercury actually causes autism and other neurological disorders.

The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is among the most scrutinized because of its heavy metal content.