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Study showing mercury in vaccine
not harmful to infants draws mixed
reactions
Corporate Responsibility News,
www.globalethicsmonitor.com,
December 04, 2002
For more articles visit
www.bridges4kids.org.
Drug companies and the US medical establishment
welcomed a new study that found infants who received
vaccines containing mercury
were unharmed but some children's health advocates discounted
the report
insisting mercury in infant vaccines was responsible for
autism and other developmental
disorders.
The study, led by Michael
Pichichero of the University of Rochester and
published in the current issue of the
British medical journal The Lancet,
found that the mercury levels found in 40 infants after
they received thimerosal-containing
vaccines was within federal safety limits.
The study was funded by the US
National Institutes of Health.
The mercury-based preservative,
thimerosal, developed by Eli Lilly & Co and
manufactured generically by
numerous drug companies, has been used as an
ingredient in routine infant vaccines since 1935.
Mercury at high doses has been
linked to neurological and nervous orders,
and Eli Lilly faces hundreds of
lawsuits by parents of children who received
vaccines with thimerosal and who have developed autism
and other
developmental disorders.
"This study hopefully addresses
the meritless and non-scientific based
lawsuits that are now being brought
against our company. There has been no
scientific causal link between thimerosal and adverse
reactions in vaccines,
and this study again concludes that fact," Eli Lilly
spokesman Ed Sagabiel told AFX
Global Ethics Monitor.
Eli Lilly has not manufactured
thimerosal since 1980, he added.
In 2000 manufacturers began
removing thimerosal from vaccines for infants
under 6 months old at the
recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control
and the American Academy of Pediatrics, who urged
removal of the compound as a
precautionary measure, despite their conclusion that there was
no conclusive
evidence linking thimerosal with autism.
Thimerosal
is still used in flu vaccines and other vaccines for adults
and children older than 6 months
old.
"Thimerosal is a
mercury-containing compound, and just like we want to drink
as clean water as possible,
we'd like to have a vaccine that doesn't contain
mercury," said pediatrician Leonard Weiner, member of
the AAP committee on
infectious diseases.
"What this study shows is that
theoretically at least the levels of
thimerosal that might have occurred were
lower even than predicted and not
near the cut off that was thought to be potentially a
problem. The study was
small but helps us conclude that the potential for
thimerosal to cause neurological
problems does not seem to be really
there," said Weiner.
But
Safe Minds, an advocacy group that has campaigned for the
removal of thimerosal from vaccines,
questioned the research methods employed in the
study, noting the time that elapsed between the time
the vaccines were given
and the blood from the infants was drawn, allowing time
for the mercury to be
excreted.
"In some cases they waited three
weeks to draw the blood. They would have
missed the peak concentrations
of mercury," said Lynn Redwood, president of
Safe Minds and a mother of an eight-year-old boy with
autism- related
disorders.
Redwood said she is convinced the
dosage of mercury in the vaccines her son
received as an infant are
responsible for his illness, and she has filed a
lawsuit against Eli Lilly.
"I'm not anti-vaccine. I just
want good research that's not conflicted by
somebody getting funding from drug
companies," said Redwood, noting that
researcher Pichichero has done previous studies for
Lilly and other companies.
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