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Vaccinations
Mercury Free Bill 2007 Legislative Session
SETTING A PREFERENCE FOR MERCURY-FREE VACCINES
Minnesota Natural Health Legal Reform Project
Minnesotans are still receiving mercury in some of their vaccines, even though there are now mercury-free vaccines available in most cases. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that causes kidney, liver, and neurological damage. Some individuals have been seriously harmed by this exposure. We need to protect Minnesotans by ensuring that they receive the mercury-free versions whenever possible.
Why was mercury ever used in vaccines?
- As a sterilizing and preservative agent
Was thimerosal (the ethylmercury compound in vaccines) ever tested for safety?
- No. Thimerosal use began before the FDA required safety testing of vaccine ingredients. Thus it was grandfathered in without having any meaningful testing done for safety.
What are the toxic effects of mercury as thimerosal?
- Thimerosal is “Poison by ingestion, subcutaneous, intravenous, and possibly other routes.” Symptoms of thimerosal exposure include “mental retardation, loss of coordination in speech, writing, and gait, and bad temper progressing to mania.”
(U.S. National Toxicology Program, U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services)
- Thimerosal “exposure in children may cause mild to severe mental retardation.”
(Eli Lilly, Material Safety Data Sheet)
- W. Slikker, FDA: “Thimerosal (sodium ethylmercurithiosalicylate) crosses the blood-brain and placental barriers and results in appreciable mercury content in tissues including brain.”
(Slikker, W, 2000. Developmental neurotoxicology of therapeutics: Survey of novel recent findings. Neurotoxicology 21(1-2): 250)
- Toxicologist Dr. Boyd Haley calls mercury the single most toxic substance he has ever tested.
- A subset of the population is particularly vulnerable to mercury, because they have reduced ability to excrete, or get rid of, mercury and other heavy metals.
The USPHS, AAP, AAFP, and CDC’s ACIP in 1999 asked pharmaceutical companies to remove mercury from vaccines.
- “The American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the U.S. Public Health Service, in consultation with the (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, reaffirm the goal set in July 1999 to remove or greatly reduce thimerosal from vaccines as soon as possible.”
(Joint Statement Concerning Removal of Thimerosal from Vaccines, AAFP, AAP, USPHS, and ACIP, June 22, 2000)
- It has now been eight years, and some pharmaceutical companies are still manufacturing vaccines with mercury in them. We can protect our citizens by buying our vaccines from companies manufacturing vaccines without mercury.
Which vaccines still contain mercury?
- In the routine childhood immunization program, many of the DTaP and Hepatitis vaccines are now completely mercury-free. Some companies’ brands, however, still have trace amounts of mercury. Most routinely recommended vaccines have both a mercury-free version and a mercury-containing version.
- Some influenza vaccines are mercury-free, but most still have very large amounts of mercury, 12.5 mcg for infants and 25 mcg for 3 years old and up.
Is a trace amount of mercury in a vaccine really hazardous?
- Mercury is so toxic even in tiny amounts that the EPA safety limit for mercury in drinking water is 2 ppb (parts per billion). A liquid with 200 ppb is considered hazardous waste. A vaccine with “just” trace amounts of mercury contains up to 2000 ppb of mercury. Spilling a vial of vaccine with even trace amounts of mercury would require a Haz-mat team to clean it up.
- A flu vaccine contains 50,000 ppb of mercury
- New research on thimerosal showed that even at the nanomolar level (parts per billion), brain cells were destroyed.
(Thimerosal induces neuronal cell apoptosis by causing cytochrome c and apoptosis-inducing factor release from mitochondria. Yel L, Brown LE, Su K, Gollapudi S, Gupta S. Immunology/Medicine, C240 Med Sci I, University of California)
- “No one knows what dose of mercury, if any, from vaccines is safe... We can say there is no evidence of harm, but the truth is - no one has looked.”
Neil Halsey, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Vaccine Safety, 1999
The controversy: Does mercury in vaccinations harm children?
- Many Minnesota parents have reported loss of neuromotor function in their child shortly after their child received vaccines containing mercury.
- Many parents are finding improvement in restoring their children to health after using chelation and other biomedical methods to remove mercury.
- Many researchers believe increased Thimerosal use during the 1990s contributed to sharply increased rates of neurological disorders in children. During the 1990s, infants received up to 237.5 mcg of mercury via vaccinations. During this time, rates of neurodevelopmental disorders skyrocketed. Today, one in six children suffer from learning disabilities, according to the CDC.
What We Can Do
- HF 1917 and SF 1780 set a preference for mercury-free vaccines. It ensures that when there is a choice between two vaccines, Minnesota citizens will receive the mercury-free option.
- The bill allows mercury-containing vaccines to be given in cases where mercury-free doses are not manufactured or not obtainable by reasonable efforts of the provider. In this situation, citizens will be informed before being given a mercury-containing vaccine.
Benefits of This Legislation
- Protection of Minnesota citizens from the potentially damaging effects of mercury exposure in vaccines. We can prevent more disabilities from needlessly occurring.
- Reduction in costs of health care and special education by preventing mercury-induced disabilities
- Increased confidence in the immunization program.
Legislation in other states to remove mercury in vaccines
- In May 2004, Iowa became the first state to ban mercury from childhood vaccines, followed by California. In 2005, Missouri, New York, Delaware, and Illinois legislatures passed bills nearly unanimously. This year Washington passed its bill. Twenty states have legislation pending.
- On the federal level, Rep. David Weldon, (R-FL) and Carolyn Maloney (D – NY) introduced the Mercury-Free Vaccines Act of 2005 (HR 881) with 50 cosponsors. Rep. Weldon, a pediatrician, calls thimerosal use “medical malpractice.”
Minnesota Natural Health Legal Reform Project
Jerri Johnson
www.mnhlrp.org
PO Box 315, Rosemount, MN 55068
Telephone: (651) 322-4542
Please call your legislators and ask them to support HF 1917 and SF 1780, legislation to set a preference for mercury-free vaccines.
To find your legislator, call (651) 296-2146, or go to
http://geo.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/districts/start.html
Vaccine Awareness Minnesota Meetings
First Mondays of each Month
6:30 - 8:30 pm
3411 Winnetka Ave North
Crystal, MN
Call For Directions (763) 593-9440.
Open to anyone interested in vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases |
