My question here is, does the new flu shots coming out (both the seasonal as well as the H1N1 vaccine) contain thimerosal or any other mercury based preservatives? Do many (most?) vaccines have this in it today? My understanding was that it was being phased out due to the hysteria over the supposed connection between thimerosal and Alzheimer’s, but today I was told (by one of those hysterics against the use of thimerosal/mercury) that it’s in all the new flu vaccines. I’m just trying to determine if this is true or not.
No debate here about thimerosal please…just the facts. For a bonus is it still widely used or is it indeed being phased out?
Not knowing for sure, I would say yes and no. I understand multidose vials contain preservative and single dose vials do not. My flu vacc was a single dose. somebody who knows for sure will be along shortly.
But, the thimerisol scare was regarding autism, not Alzheimer’s.
To answer your last question, yes thiomersol has largely been phased out of the routine childhood vaccines, though it is still in some other types of vaccines (non-childhood).
That’s what I thought. I remember reading that it had been phased out for most childrens vaccines due to the hysterics, so I assumed (without checking…always a bad thing) that it wouldn’t be in current flu vaccines. Ah well…not as if I’ve never been wrong before, or that I’ve never had to eat my own words.
Unfortunately, the person I was talking to about this will simply jump from ‘Ha! See, you were wrong about whether it was in there!’ to ‘And because you were wrong about that you are equally wrong about the horrible effects of thimerosal on our poor children!’. C’est la vie.
And thimerisol is ethylmercury by 50% weight, which is the wrong kind. Methymercury is the stuff with the ability to cross the blood brain barrier and to accumulate. Offit did a nice briefer on this topic in Monday’s(12Oct2009) NYT. But there is a thimerisol free version for the younger critters.
Well, it looks like thimerasal is absolutely out of vaccines used for children. They are a little vague about it being out of influenza vaccines when administered to children. Clearly it is available sans thimerasal and the few pictures I have seen so far of children getting it were the nasal version which seems thimerasal free per the above info.
Does that mean they strictly only give thimerasal free vaccines to children? I do not know. It does not say. I am willing to bet they try but I suppose some mom getting her kids vaccinated in the mall parking lot might get the bulk version which has thimerasal. Not sure if the people administering it would say no…send the kid somewhere that has single doses.
And FWIW you can tell your friend there is zero evidence, as noted above (follow the link and they spell out numerous agencies both private and government), that there is any harm to be had from this. I seriously doubt the CDC would quietly let kids get vaccines that would harm them much less all the other places that have tested it. Just sounds scary. Medicine really needs to change its marketing from “thimerasal” to “mana from heaven”…be less problems with this I suspect.
It won’t do any good…she is a true believer. Any evidence to the contrary is either the Evil Government™ and/or Big Pharma(ARR) cooking the evidence for (insert crazy theory with 3 steps ending with Make Huge Profits!!). She thinks it’s all a huge conspiracy…just like everything else.
My condolences. My brother and SIL are in the same boat. I’m under suspicion or in collusion because I work in medical research and ask for supporting evidence, rather than falling for force of conviction. I have a bottle of 100% thimerosal sitting on my chemical storage shelf, and I’m thinking of waving it in their faces on Halloween night. I’m still waiting for my profit-sharing check from Big Pharma. Those guys owe me big time, what with all of the co-pays I’ve made over the years.
Mercury (as thimerosal) was pulled from pediatric vaccines in 2001 as part of a larger removal of mercury from anything (remember Tincture of Merthiolate for cuts?) where it wasn’t explicitly proven to be of benefit. The reasoning was that there were other preservatives that were safer (but that thimerosal was mostly safe but we’re going to pull it anyway).
Vlad/Igor, evil underling of the more eviler overlords of knowledge and profits and lies and stuff.
Well-known autism experts (like Robert F. Kennedy) have determined that thimerosal (in vaccines) is responsible for autism.
You can read about it in Rolling Stone magazine (that well-regarded, highly scientific) publication!
