”’Editor’s Note: Gov. Linda Lingle is considering a veto of a bill that passed this legislative session that would ban the use of Mercury in children’s vaccines — an move that has set off a firestorm of debate. Here is a letter on one side of the issue. The governor has to decide what she will do by July 11.”’
Thanks to the ”’Hawaii Reporter”’ for discussing the mercury/vaccine issue. As a chemist with 20 years experience evaluating material for mercury, I was shocked to discover the quantity of mercury in vaccines (50,000 parts per billion (ppb) Hg in vaccines, 200 ppb to qualify as liquid hazardous waste). It dwarfs all other sources of childhood mercury exposure. This doesn’t even take into account that the main ingredient in thimerosal, Ethylmercuric Chloride, arguably, is one of the most toxic forms of mercury that exists (see Merck Index for detail).
Lisa Randall (”’Hawaii Reporter”’, 7/2/06) cites the six major epidemiological studies as the conclusive science on this subject. She dismisses the 5 published epidemiological studies done by independent researchers Dr. Mark and David Geier which reach a totally different conclusion. All of the other studies she refers to are from Europe where the vaccine schedule is substantially different than the U.S.
These countries did not expose newborns to mercury at birth via the Hepatitis B vaccine as was the case here. Most countries only used 3 thimerosal containing vaccines versus 12 in the U.S. In Denmark, where 2 of these studies were done, thimerosal was banned in 1992. In one study, they claimed rates of autism went up after thimerosal was banned. This was because in 1995, they started counting autistic outpatients as opposed to only inpatients for the years prior to 1995. Since outpatients exceed inpatients by a 13:1 ratio in Denmark, you would expect a minimum 13 fold increase. If only inpatient data had been compared, rates would have dropped substantially.
Why are rates of autism in Denmark a fraction of what they are in the U.S. ( 7/10000 as compared to 60/10000)? Nobody asks this simple question. The authors of the Denmark studies work for the Statens Serum Institute, a European vaccine component provider. This is never mentioned. The study in the U.S. has 5 different conclusions dating from 2000-2004. Each subsequent evaluation, which was totally controlled by the CDC, lowered the risks of thimerosal containing vaccines.
When the watered-down study was officially published by Pediatrics in 2004, the lead author had already been employed, since 2001, with a major thimerosal vaccine manufacturer. Pediatrics did not believe this little tidbit was worth mentioning. If you go to the medical search engine “Pubmed” and type in thimerosal, you will get references to 1108 published, peer-reviewed papers. The over-whelming message of these papers is the extreme neurotoxicity of thimerosal.
”’Michael Wagnitz is a Senior Chemist in Madison, WI. Reach him via email at”’ mailto:mwagnit@yahoo.com
”’HawaiiReporter.com reports the real news, and prints all editorials submitted, even if they do not represent the viewpoint of the editors, as long as they are written clearly. Send editorials to”’ mailto:Malia@HawaiiReporter.com