# Mercury, vaccinations and you. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 13, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600 "2006-09-13T21:25:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/1 "2006-09-13T21:25:19Z")
Thimerosal is sometimes (often?) used as a preservative for vaccines. It contains a small amount of mercury, something like [25 micrograms/dose](http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm). With respect to the considerable battery of vaccines given to infants and small chilluns, how big a deal is this? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/2 "2006-09-14T01:17:19Z")
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya] Thimerosal is sometimes (often?) used as a preservative for vaccines. It contains a small amount of mercury, something like [25 micrograms/dose](http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm). With respect to the considerable battery of vaccines given to infants and small chilluns, how big a deal is this? [/QUOTE] Well, for one thing, vaccine manufacturers are trying to get away without using thimerosal. Second, I’d be more concerned about, say, living downwind from a dirty, coal-burning power plant which _continually_ puts small bit of mercury into the air than from a teeny bit in a vaccine, which is a very infrequent occurance. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/3 "2006-09-14T01:24:21Z")
Neither of my pediatricians have used vaccines with that preservative in years. It was all over the news a few years back, when it was tentatively linked to the explosion of autism diagnoses. ---
**Author:** ![keeper0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@keeper0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeper0)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/4 "2006-09-14T01:30:20Z")
I know of some people who are strongly concerned about this, one of whom is a nurse. So you aren’t alone in your worry. Whether those worries have any solid basis is beyond my knowledge base. ---
**Author:** ![Yeah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/dbc845/32.png) [@Yeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeah)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/5 "2006-09-14T01:53:44Z")
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya] Thimerosal is sometimes (often?) used as a preservative for vaccines. It contains a small amount of mercury, something like [25 micrograms/dose](http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm). With respect to the considerable battery of vaccines given to infants and small chilluns, how big a deal is this? [/QUOTE] If you look carefully at the table you will see that none of the vaccines routinely given to young children has more than a trace of mercury. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/6 "2006-09-14T01:57:12Z")
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya] Thimerosal is sometimes (often?) used as a preservative for vaccines. It contains a small amount of mercury, something like [25 micrograms/dose](http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm). With respect to the considerable battery of vaccines given to infants and small chilluns, how big a deal is this? [/QUOTE] Well, this study seems fairly well designed and didn’t find any effect: [http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/290/13/1763?AddInterest=1053](http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/290/13/1763?AddInterest=1053) ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/7 "2006-09-14T02:12:59Z")
Other than flu vaccines–which aren’t routinely given to children–only trace amounts of thimerosal are in children’s vaccines. Most contain none at all, and it’s been completely banned in several states (most recently [California](http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/state/14963917.htm)). As far as studies go, the only ones I’m aware of are attempting to address the common nutcase idea that childhood vaccination causes autism; this is completely and routinely debunked, most recently with the MMR vaccine, look [here](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3640898.stm) for a casual-reader version, and [here](http://news.surfwax.com/disabilities/files/Causes_Of_Autism.html) for links to all sorts of news stories on it. I don’t know much about other supposed effects of tiny mercury amounts beyond the autism one that gets so much conspiracy-theory press. But I _do_ know that Whooping cough, measles, and a number of other diseases which actually DO harm (even kill) children are on the rise since this scare started. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/8 "2006-09-14T02:23:05Z")
There’s more mercury in some kinds of fish than you could ever get from a vaccine. Are any parents claiming that salmon gave their kid autism? ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/9 "2006-09-14T04:46:53Z")
[QUOTE=Antigen] Are any parents claiming that salmon gave their kid autism? [/QUOTE] _Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_ Some childhood vaccinations occur at roughly the same age that autism symptoms start to be noticable. Most kids probably don’t start eating salmon that early. (And given the level of toxins in fish, shouldn’t). People are very, very good at seeing patterns and cause/effect relationships – even when they don’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/10 "2006-09-14T06:11:08Z")
[QUOTE=Antigen] There’s more mercury in some kinds of fish than you could ever get from a vaccine. Are any parents claiming that salmon gave their kid autism? [/QUOTE] That’s a fairly good point to make. At the EPA limit of .3 micrograms per gram of fish it would take about 3 ounces of fish to reach the same value of mercury. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mercury-vaccinations-and-you/372600/11 "2006-09-14T08:26:01Z")
The [CDC](http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/thimerosal/default.htm) says that > [@](#): > > Today, with the exception of some Influenza (flu) vaccines, none of the vaccines used in the U.S. to protect preschool children against 12 infectious diseases contain thimerosal as a preservative. The brands in the chart with Thimerosal are not used in children under 12, except for the flu vaccines. There have been other threads on this in the past, but I can’t seem to find them, right now.