If you haven’t already read the post entitled Why I Choose Not To Vaccinate, I highly recommend you read that first. Below you will find additional info regarding mercury.
There are several forms of mercury. The most toxic and most studied is methylmercury. The type of mercury that is used in vaccines is ethylmercury, more specifically, thimerosal. Thimerosal is used as a preservative. A preservative is a substance that kills or prevents the growth of microorganisms. In vaccines, thimerosal is used to prevent microbial growth. Thimerosal in vaccines has been hypothesized to play a role in the development of autism and other neurological disorders. The medical establishment would like you to believe that this link has been completely disproven. However, you need to know that many of the studies that debunk the link are flawed. First of all we have yet to see a large scale study comparing vaccinated children to unvaccinated children; although I am aware that such a study would be difficult to conduct. Also, there are no double-blind placebo control studies. Double-blind placebo studies are the gold standard for assessing safety and efficacy; and I also admit that this sort of study would also be difficult… and perhaps unethical. Also, there are no long-term, multi-vaccine combination studies. So without the proper studies how can people say that there is no link between mercury in vaccines and neurological disorders?
So what kinds of studies exist that supposedly debunk the mercury/neurological disorder link? There are vaccine studies that compare kids with all their shots to those with some or no shots. Here is one specific study that I will use as an example: It’s called Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism. Basically, this was a correlational study. Researchers compared children who were exposed to different amounts of mercury from vaccines (the system they used provided an estimate of mercury exposure as opposed to actual numbers). They concluded that increased mercury exposure was not related to whether or not a child developed autism. Again, the issue is whether or not mercury causes autism. This study is like comparing people who smoke a little with people who smoke a lot, finding no difference between the groups and then concluding that smoking does not cause cancer. In order to determine cause, you need to dig a little deeper than that! This study should have compared children with no shots versus children with shots. Furthermore, we should specifically look at those shots claimed to cause autism (such as the MMR vaccine, and other vaccines that contain mercury). Also, the study excluded people with certain disabilities from participating. Since other disabilities often coincide with autism, some children with autism may have accidentally been excluded from the study, thereby decreasing the prevalence of autism in the study. Lastly, this study was funded by the CDC. This is a conflict of interest.
Another issue that is rarely discussed in these kinds of studies is that, for years, doctors that study autism have proposed that ASD children differ on their ability to detoxify thimerosal and not necessarily their exposure to it. In other words, someone genetically predisposed to autism develops autism because their body cannot excrete mercury, and therefore it builds up in the body. If child A and child B are both exposed to the same amount of mercury, but child B’s body does not excrete (detox from) mercury, then child B is the one who may develop autism. If this is true, comparing kids who were all exposed to different levels of thimerosal will not yield useful information.
Here is another article printed in the Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics that found no relationship between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental problems. To avoid creating yet another long and boring post, I will let you read the criticisms of this research on the website. Note specifically the post by Mark R. Geier entitled “Study Misses Link Between Thimerosal and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.” Also, I think it is important to point out that Mr. Verstraeten (the author of the above research paper) was an employee of GlaxoSmithKline (a pharmaceutical company and vaccine manufacturer) when he submitted the study for publication. Yet another conflict of interest.
Anyway, mercury is toxic. It’s that simple. Researchers are not arguing over whether or not mercury is toxic. The argument is how much mercury can doctors inject into a person before damage is done…and whether or not we should be injecting mercury into humans at all. The CDC would like us to believe that, due to parent’s complaints that thimerosal was hurting their children, the CDC decided to remove it from vaccines- as a precautionary measure. What the CDC never tells you is that researchers have been questioning the use of thimerosal (and other types of mercury) in medicine for a very, very long time. Yet, it was still being used! Anyway, after they started phasing out thimerosal, the CDC began rolling out studies that “debunked” the link between thimerosal and neurological disorders. Let me mention that Poul Thorsen, the Danish scientist who coordinated these CDC-funded studies, was indicted on April 13th 2011 for 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money-laundering.
What makes me so upset is that often, the studies being touted as debunking the autism/mercury link never even begin with a relevant research question! Here’s what I mean. Take a look at this study. When these types of studies are done, you will see and hear phrases such as “Another Study Debunks Mercury as Cause of Autism Spectrum Disorders” on various websites and news stations. Since many people trust the media, they will see this or hear this and believe it at face value. No additional research will be done. This is the problem folks! Well I read the article. And I didn’t even actually need to read the article because it says right there in the abstract that analyses of urine were used to determine whether or not children with autism had higher levels of mercury than the control group. As I mentioned already, there is a problem with simply testing exposure levels! Testing the amount of mercury in a person’s urine will not tell you whether or not exposure to mercury causes autism.
Here is another fact used to ”prove” that thimerosal is safe: Many studies on thimerosal conclude that ethylmercury is cleared out from the blood much quicker than methylmercury. But my question is: “And?” Just because the body excretes it faster that means that it is not dangerous? Right….
Also, current research does show that the nervous system and kidneys are damaged by ethylmercury exposure at high doses. Since damage can be observed immediately at high doses, the medical establishment extrapolates the theory that when given low doses over a long period of time, there is no damage at all. Right….
I would never say that mercury, without a doubt, causes autism. But with all of the fraud and conflicts of interest within the medical community, are we ever going to get a decent study? Since so many independent researchers have given us tons of clues as to what causes autism why isn’t the CDC taking notice of these studies and funding these independent researchers so that their work can be continued on a larger scale? This is an important question to consider.
Also, it’s important to keep in mind that mercury is not proposed as being the only thing that can cause autism. Mercury is just one substance linked to autism. And in addition to being linked autism, mercury has been linked to many other health problems. And while it is great that mercury has been taken out of childhood vaccines, there are still trace amounts in them. Furthermore, mercury has not been taken out of the widely used flu vaccine, which pregnant women and children are told to get.
Here a few things about the history of mercury that you should know:
-Mercury has been used in medicine since the 1930′s. And since then, it has been widely criticized by many people in the medical field.
-In 1982 The FDA proposed a ban on thimerosal in over the counter products citing possible toxicity as well as ineffectiveness.
-By the time the FDA conducted its review of mercury in 1999, more than 50 licensed vaccines contained thimerosal (isn’t that wonderful? Doctors were pushing vaccines containing mercury on people before the FDA actually reviewed mercury)
-Thimerosal was taken out of U.S. childhood vaccines in 2001 (not all at once- it was phased out over time. And trace amounts are still present).
-Thimerosal is still being used in vaccines administered in third world countries
-There are no guidelines for the use of ethylmercury. Guidelines are based on studies of methylmercury, and these guidelines have to do with exposure via ingestion- not injection into the bloodstream.
Another interesting piece of info is that before the 1930s people with autism were unknown. Nobody knows if this is because people did not have autism or if it was because autism wasn’t recognized. In any case, we didn’t start to see diagnoses of autism until the ’30s and ’40s right around the time when thimerosal was put in medicines as well as household products. And we saw a huge spike in autism in the mid 90s, when the vaccine schedule was dramatically increased, exposing children to outrageous levels of thimerosal. I think this info alone is enough to make the medical community want to conduct rigorous, scientifically sound studies on thimerosal, and vaccines in general.
And don’t get upset when I say that maybe the medical community is purposely ignoring researchers who still think that mercury is a problem. Historically speaking, that’s what the establishment does when someone discovers something contrary to what they have been brainwashed to believe. The whistle-blower is ignored, discredited or attacked. Do you know who Dr. Semmelweis is? He was a doctor who was ridiculed by the medical community back in the 1840s when he suggested that hand washing could prevent childbed fever. If women are dying of childbed fever at very high rates, and a man shows you how to reduce that rate by 90% why would you not take him seriously? The thought of the medical community ignoring Dr. Semmelweis’ findings is ludicrous. Yet this still happens today. And not just in the medical community. People are routinely fired from their jobs when they disagree with the official position of the “establishment.” But that’s another post for another day.
Below you will find links to many leaders in the field of vaccine truth. These are highly educated people who have research backing them up. Yet, they are ignored by the medical establishment.
In summary, I believe that the facts are being misrepresented by public health officials who are trying to save our current vaccine program. The medical establishment is, in general, a staunch supporter of vaccines and do not believe mercury was ever a problem, while most naturopathic doctors are against vaccines. It is a fact that mercury is toxic. Researchers have been warning against its use for a while now.
If you get nothing else out of this post, just know that the case is not closed.
additional links
http://www.14studies.org/studies.html
http://www.14studies.org/ourstudies.html
http://vaccines.procon.org/sourcefiles/Burton_Report.pdf
