ARTICLE: The Age of Autism: Doctors for mercury

[Guest guest]

The Age of Autism: Doctors for mercury

By DAN OLMSTED

UPI Senior Editor

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- As doctors and health authorities fight state

bans on mercury in vaccines and keep giving it to kids and pregnant women,

one fact stands out: their certainty.

The image of pediatricians and public officials as valiant defenders of

mercury takes a bit of getting used to, given their longstanding efforts to

keep the toxic element out of our food, our bodies and the environment.

No reasonable person -- let alone health professional -- would advocate

keeping mercury in childhood vaccines unless they were absolutely certain it

was an exception to this lethal legacy.

That's especially so because vaccines can be made without the mercury

preservative, called thimerosal. You can take it out and still protect the

health of American children through vaccination, and if you had a shred of

doubt about its safety, surely you would.

If you keep it in, you had better be right.

But what is the real degree of certainty that thimerosal is safe? Is it

absolute? Beyond a reasonable doubt? A preponderance of the evidence -- the

lesser standard that applies in civil cases but not when someone's freedom

(or life) is at stake?

Here's the kind of thing that makes doctors -- most of whom have no more

ability than you or I to investigate the safety of vaccines for themselves

-- feel so certain. It's a paper titled " Vaccine Safety Controversies and

the Future of Vaccination Programs, " and it appears in the November 2005

issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.

The authors are from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

which recommends the childhood immunization schedule; the United Nations

World Health Organization, which oversees the vaccination of tens of

millions of people worldwide every year, and several big universities. The

report was supported by " unrestricted grants from GlaxoKline

Biologicals, Sanofi Pasteur MSD, several universities and other

institutions. "

" Thimerosal has been used for (more than) 60 years in infant vaccines and in

other applications and has not been associated with adverse health effects

in the general population, except when persons have been exposed to amounts

many orders of magnitude greater than found in vaccines or pharmaceuticals, "

the authors write.

That's a ringing endorsement of safety (whether it's supported by the data

is an issue I'll address in upcoming columns). But keep reading: " It should

also be borne in mind that the risks of thimerosal-containing vaccines to

the fetus, premature infant and low-weight infant have insufficiently been

studied. "

Whoa. " Insufficiently studied " -- after more than 60 years of giving

thimerosal to pregnant women and babies of every size and shape?

Nonetheless, the CDC recommends flu shots for pregnant women and

6-to-23-months-olds and won't recommend thimerosal-free versions. As a

result, most flu shots still contain mercury.

Another new study is condescendingly titled, " When science is not enough --

a risk/benefit profile of thimerosal-containing vaccines, " by Australians C.

Clements and B. McIntyre in the journal Expert Opinion on Drug

Safety:

" Thimerosal is safe as a vaccine preservative, and should continue to be

used in settings where accessibility and cost require that multi-dose vials

of vaccine are available. "

Clements advises the WHO on vaccine policy; McIntyre is director of

Australia's National Center for Immunization Research and Surveillance of

Vaccine-Preventable Diseases.

" The overwhelming weight of scientific opinion rejects the hypothesis that

neurodevelopmental abnormalities are causally related to the use of

thimerosal in vaccines, " they point out.

This is the kind of ammunition public health officials and the American

Academy of Pediatrics are firing back at proponents of mercury bans

-- " overwhelming " evidence that thimerosal is safe. In Illinois, the state

AAP vigorously opposed the ban.

" Though well intended, these bills do not advance public health and could

inadvertently diminish our state's efforts at fighting influenza, " the AAP

said. " Though it is a mercury-containing compound, thimerosal does not pass

from the bloodstream into the brain to any significant degree. "

The state legislators listened politely to that dubious assertion -- and

voted to limit thimerosal in childhood vaccines anyway. But that was not the

last word.

As reported by R. L. Nave in the Illinois Times last month: " Citing cost

concerns and a potential shortfall for the upcoming flu season, the Illinois

Department of Public Health filed for a 12-month exemption to the

Mercury-Free Vaccine Act, passed last summer to limit the use of vaccines

containing mercury. However, child-health-care advocates who lobbied for the

bill's passage are upset by what they believe was a premeditated attempt by

IDPH to circumvent state law. "

This is what you call chutzpah -- public health authorities thwarting the

express will of the people, certain that flu shots will save humanity and

mercury never hurt anybody. Does the governor never fire anyone?

Almost lost in this crossfire is the simple fact that in 1999, these

selfsame health authorities -- the CDC, the Public Health Service, the

pediatricians, the family physicians -- urged drug companies to remove

thimerosal from childhood immunizations in the United States as soon as

possible.

Most childhood vaccines -- in the United States, not overseas -- are now

thimerosal-free. But that's hardly a blanket reassurance, because most flu

shots do contain thimerosal.

Yet the CDC is still studying whether thimerosal causes autism.

" We do agree the preponderance of evidence to date suggests there is no

association between thimerosal and autism, " CDC spokesman Glen Nowak told us

last month. But he said CDC Director Dr. Gerberding is committed to

exploring all possibilities until the cause or causes of the disorder are

identified.

" Dr. Gerberding has made it clear the CDC has not ruled out anything as

possible causes of autism, including thimerosal, " Nowak said. " Science is a

dynamic process. We have continued to fund studies to look at the role, if

any, of thimerosal. "

Given these caveats, what would you do? Well, there are two maxims of

medicine that might apply. " First, do no harm, " is the obvious one.

The second, related concept is the precautionary principle which, according

to wikipedia.org, " is the idea that if the consequences of an action are

unknown, but are judged to have some potential for major or irreversible

negative consequences, then it is better to avoid that action. "

So: Vaccines don't need mercury. Even government experts acknowledge some

possible risks -- to the fetus, for example -- are insufficiently studied 60

years on. A link to autism has not been ruled out. They're continuing to

investigate, as they should.

But the doctors and their public and private allies are battling state by

state to stop mercury bans, and the CDC won't recommend a thimerosal-free

flu shot for kids and pregnant woman. There's a phrase for this approach:

Bombs away.

--

E-mail: dolmsted@...

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