Thimerosal is not being removed from the vaccines given to hundreds of millions of children around the world.
"Until recently the CDC admitted that the nervous system is very sensitive to all forms of mercury and that exposure to high levels of metallic, inorganic, or organic mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus. In 1999, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that under the recommended childhood immunization schedule infants might be exposed to cumulative doses of ethylmercury that exceed some federal safety guidelines established for the oral ingestion of methylmercury. Effects on brain functioning may include irritability, tremors, and changes in vision or hearing, attention, language, and memory problems. They also admit that the effects of short-term exposure to high levels of metallic mercury vapors may include lung damage, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, increases in blood pressure or heart rate, skin rashes, and eye irritation."
"The CDC also admitted that researchers in one study found statistically significant associations between thimerosal and several neurodevelopmental disorders, including language delays, speech delays, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), unspecified developmental delays, stammering, sleep disorders, emotional disorders, and tics. Yet the CDC will not admit any correlation between the use of thimerosal in vaccines and the complaints of thousands of desperate parents. In contrast, the US General Accounting Office said in 1999 "[a] vaccine can have severe side effects, including death or disabling conditions requiring lifetime medical care." And it should be noted that the American Pediatrics Association (APA) had posted on their web site in 2003 that, An early CDC study suggested a possible weak connection between the amount of thimerosal given and certain neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD, speech and language delays, and tics. The APA has stated, Even though theres no evidence that thimerosal in vaccines is dangerous, the Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics believe the effort to remove mercury-based preservatives from vaccines was a good decision. By taking thimerosal out of vaccines, we are lessening the amount of mercury a child will be exposed to early in life.
"Any competent biochemist would look at the structure of thimerosal and
identify it as a potent enzyme inhibitor. What is surprising is that the appropriate animal and laboratory testing was not done on the vaccines containing thimerosal (and aluminum) before the government embarked on a mandated vaccine program that exposed infants to the levels of thimerosal that occurred."
Boyd E. Haley, PhD
"On October 31, 2003 medical doctor and congressmen Dave Weldon wrote to Dr. Julie Gerberding the director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) confronting deliberate data manipulates in the all important study of the role of mercury found in vaccines and the development of autism. A vitally important study, which originally showed a legally and scientifically significant causal connection between autism and mercury in vaccines was subverted by officials of the CDC to show no causal connection according to documents recording the discussions at a secret meeting between the author of the study and the CDC. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) special council Scott J. Bloch, in a recent letter to congress said that, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration colluded with pharmaceutical companies at a conference in Norcross, Georgia, in June 2000, to prevent the release of a study which showed a statistical correlation between thimerosal/mercury exposure through pediatric vaccines and neurological disorders, including autism, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, stuttering, tics and speech and language delays. Instead of releasing the data presented at the conference, the author of the study, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, later published a different version of the study in the November 2003 issue of Pediatrics, which did not show a statistical correlation. No explanation has been provided for this discrepancy.
"In the late nineteen nineties a researcher named Dr. Thomas Verstraten worked at the CDC on a study of 76,659 children to determine if thimerosal might be causing neurological problems like autism. A February 2000 draft of Verstraeten's study, obtained by United Press International, appears to show that thimerosal might cause brain problems. That draft cited "increasing risks of neurological developmental disorders with increasing cumulative exposure to thimerosal. We can state that this analysis does not rule out that receipt of thimerosal-containing vaccine in children under 3 months of age may be related to an increased risk of neurologic developmental disorders," the study said. To discuss the findings in Dr. Verstraeten's study, the CDC convened a meeting at the Simpsonwood Retreat Center in Norcross, Ga., on June 7-8, 2000. The agency invited vaccine experts and representatives of four vaccine manufacturers. After discussing that study, Dr. David Johnson, a Michigan state public health officer advising the CDC on vaccines, said that the findings were troubling, according to a transcript. "My gut feeling? It worries me enough," said Johnson. "I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on." Later in the same conversation, CDC officials agreed to keep the study private. In October 2001, the Institute of Medicine panel that heard from Verstraeten found that it is "biologically plausible" that thimerosal causes autism, but that, "current scientific evidence neither proves nor disproves a link."
Mercury poisoning and autism have nearly identical symptoms: self-injurious behavior, social withdrawal, lack of eye contact, lack of facial expression,
hypersensitivity to noise and touch, and repetitive behaviors.
What we see coming through the parents histories over and over again
in our office is that the developmental delays began after the vaccines."
Stephanie Cave, MD
"Mercury is a neurotoxin, and ethylmercury is the active component of thimerosal, and as a precautionary public health effort to minimize exposure of mercury to infants and children, a joint statement was issued in July 1999 by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Public Health Service recommending the removal of thimerosal from vaccines as soon as possible. Today, most routinely recommended pediatric vaccines manufactured for the U.S. market still contain thimerosal, though according to the IOM, only trace amounts remain. Back in 1999, Dr Neal Halsey who heads the Hopkins Institute for Vaccine Safety said, my first reaction was simply disbelief, which was the reaction of almost everybody involved in vaccines. In most vaccine containers, thimerosal is listed as a mercury derivative, a hundredth of a percent. And what I believed, and what everybody else believed, was that it was truly a trace, a biologically insignificant amount. My honest belief is that if the labels had had the mercury content in micrograms, this would have been uncovered years ago. But the fact is, no one did the calculation. "From the beginning, I saw thimerosal as something different. It was the first strong evidence of a causal association with neurological impairment. I was very concerned."
"Assessments made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists were particularly painful to Dr. Halsey. They found that the vaccines added to the standard regimen, during Dr. Halsey's years as chairman of the the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) committee that determines which vaccinations should be mandated for children, had tripled the dose of mercury administered to infants in the first months of life. The amount, according to the FDA scientists, was high enough to cause subtle neurological impairment, and thus, in 1999, the FDA asked vaccine manufacturers to remove thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury, from all the vaccines that are routinely administered to children."