MAJOR Thimerosal / Autism scare piece in Salon

Wow. That first article you linked to was written by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He says:
The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to "rule out" the chemical's link to autism.
As if.

I'm sure the IOM is some rag-tag band of shills for the administration who have no concept of real science <roll-eyes smiley here>.
 
It is not worth registering to read the scare story. The only good thing is that this is on a registration only site.

It sounds about as bad as the WingNutDaily, oh sorry, WorldNetDaily loons claiming the increase in pertussis if from illegal immigrants, NOT the Barbara Loe Fisher and her band of anti-vax loons.

Anyway, I have a very interesting email from a certain 'doctor' on the HuffPo blog... I plan to share it later this week. It is priceless, not the least is that his response is in all CAPS!
 
Hydrogen Cyanide said:
It is not worth registering to read the scare story. The only good thing is that this is on a registration only site.

It sounds about as bad as the WingNutDaily, oh sorry, WorldNetDaily loons claiming the increase in pertussis if from illegal immigrants, NOT the Barbara Loe Fisher and her band of anti-vax loons.

Anyway, I have a very interesting email from a certain 'doctor' on the HuffPo blog... I plan to share it later this week. It is priceless, not the least is that his response is in all CAPS!
Would that be Jay Gordon?
 
I promised in a reply that I would not reveal his name. It is a silly email and could be damaging... so I made the promise, and I'm sticking with it.

Once upon a time I had a Top Secret clearence, I know how the rules work.

It works as long as you do not reveal you are attached to certain clues. :D

(but you can see my reply in Oracknows that he and you commented on June 11th).
 
Hydrogen Cyanide said:
I promised in a reply that I would not reveal his name. It is a silly email and could be damaging... so I made the promise, and I'm sticking with it.

Once upon a time I had a Top Secret clearence, I know how the rules work.

It works as long as you do not reveal you are attached to certain clues. :D

(but you can see my reply in Oracknows that he and you commented on June 11th).
:D Got it.

anyone want to comment on the supressed CDC study? Anyone know anything about this?
 
This is now making the rounds of the Healthfraud listserv. Kathleen Seidel of http://www.neurodiversity.com/main.html has sent a comment to Salon.

She posted this (I don't think she would mind it reprinted here):
There are active discussions of the article currently in progress at:

http://tabletalk.salon.com/webx?13@@.773a4695
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/42800 (where my letter to Salon was posted in its entirety by list member "digaman")

Also, it has been noted (by the Austism-Diva!! who I really think is cool, http://www.autismdiva.blogspot.com/ ) that the whole article is also here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7395411?rnd=1118876085895&has-player=true
 
The CDC has a great site that deals with questions about the Thimerosal - autism "connection" right here. (Hey, if your beef is with vaccines, the CDC is the place to go for answers!)

Incidentally, the federal guidelines on exposure limits of mercury are based on research done on methylmercury. Thimerosal is made of ethylmercury (about 49%). Ethylmercury is supposed to be less dangerous than methylmercury because it does not bind to tissue as readily. That doesn't mean you'd want to sprinkle it on your ice cream, but from what I understand the amount of ethylmercury it would take to harm an infant is way higher than what is used in the few remaining vaccines that still contain the substance.
 
Oh goody. The media again. Loves a false yet crazy tempting conspiracy theory!
"then where are all the twenty-year-old autistics?"

Still undiagnosed you maroon. They are no longer going to school and won't benefit from a diagnosis. They would be the unlabelled kids from the special ed classes, or the ones who failed a few grades here and there. They will be the ones doing unskilled labor that are the friendly and nice people who greet with a smile everyday. Try telling me you don't know anyone like this. I know several. They are just "slow" and gullible sweet folks that are loveable.
Infants who received all their vaccines, plus boosters, by the age of six months were being injected with levels of ethylmercury 187 times greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin.

There's that overblown mistatement again. Yes, 6 months of vaccination all lumped together in one dose would be higher than a daily recommended dose of it. Duh.

Just from that I can see how other things are misconstrued or overblown, the actual facts ignored. I will be looking a few thing up in the Rolling Stone article that I've not heard before.
several studies -- including one published in April by the National Institutes of Health

I cannot find that study. Or can I?

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7712/7712.pdf

I'm finding lies again in the rolling stone article. In the rolling stone article they say:
published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest that ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in the brain longer than methylmercury
But in the study they say:

A much lower brain concentration of total Hg was observed in the thimerosal infants compared to the MeHg infants, i.e., a 3- to 4-fold difference for an equivalent exposure of Hg. Moreover, total Hg is cleared much more rapidly from the brain after thimerosal than after methymercury exposure (24 vs 60 days).

I wonder if Rolling Stone or that joke of an author is willing to print the truth in a retractment?

There is a lower overall Hg brain concentration in the thimerosal group, but there is More inorganic % in the thimerosal group. So this was twisted by the antivaccinators.

So, it would be like saying there was a 60 concentration in the thimerosal group with 70% of that 60 of that being inorganic. Comparing that to 500 concentration in the methylmercury group with only 10% of that 500 being inorganic. The antivaccinators have grabbed onto the 70% vs 10% and are ignoring total overall concentration. Jerks.

I bet I can rebutt every lie in that article. I wonder why the author didn't check his facts? Or is he a known blatant liar?
 
If I didn't have to go to work...

Oh, and the 10% vs 71% quote about the inorganic portion of the Hg is being quoted around massively.

Just more blatant misquoting by using words out of context to ignore the big picture AGAIN. Who is devious?
 
I just read the article at Salon and came here to see if there was a discussion about it. I highly reccommend the article. Kennedy paints a very convincing arguement for a REAL conspiracy with major conflicts of interest between CDC advisors and the Pharm industry. I have to conclude that mercury in vaccines is a bad idea. The ugly bottom line is more profit for bulk vaccines. I am not an anti-vaccinator and I believe that vaccines have saved millions of lives but this is making the hysterical anti-vaccinators look credible. The vaccine itself is not the problem. It is the preservative used that is causing autism. The statistics cited by Kennedy about the absense if autism before Thimerosol vaccines in this country and China are alarming.
Unless you read the article then you cannot dismiss it. Salon is well worth a subscription. I have been a member for years and if you like to read then it is a great source of information with good writers. If you are a right wing Bush lover then you probably won't like Salon very much.
 
So Morchella what is your take on this reaction:
http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/06/saloncom-flushes-its-credibility-down.html

Also, why should we value an article written by journalists, lawyers and politicians over health care professionals? Like the health care professionals in several countries, including Denmark (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12949291&dopt=Abstract )and the UK (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15342825 )

Also, before anyone screams "Big Pharma is in it for the money!!" read this:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/504779?src=search , abstract here: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/3/622

Here is some more in-depth reading material:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10208.html
 
Morchella said:
I just read the article at Salon and came here to see if there was a discussion about it. I highly reccommend the article. Kennedy paints a very convincing arguement for a REAL conspiracy with major conflicts of interest between CDC advisors and the Pharm industry. I have to conclude that mercury in vaccines is a bad idea. The ugly bottom line is more profit for bulk vaccines. I am not an anti-vaccinator and I believe that vaccines have saved millions of lives but this is making the hysterical anti-vaccinators look credible. The vaccine itself is not the problem. It is the preservative used that is causing autism. The statistics cited by Kennedy about the absense if autism before Thimerosol vaccines in this country and China are alarming.
1) Last time I checked, vaccines usually aren't profitable. How would they make money off of it if they had to support a conspiracy and coverup?

2) Mercury's toxicity depends on what it's bonded with, just like any other element. Do you complain about the danger of having chlorine in table salt?

3) Autism's definition has been expanding, so it's no surprise that there's more reports of it. Another possible explanation is better diagnosis.

4) Prove that Thermosol can cause autism.

5) I strongly recommend you read Hydrogen Cyanide's links.
 
OK, I read all he links that worked. Here is a quote from the Institute of Medicine that I had to type because I was not able to copy and paste.



“The committee concludes that although the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosol-containing vaccines could be associated with neurodevelopmental disorders is not established and rests on indirect and incomplete information, primarily from analogies with methylmercury and levels of maximum mercury exposure from vaccines given in children, the hypothesis is biologically plausible.
The committee also concludes that the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between thimerosol exposures from childhood vaccines and the neurodevelopmental disorders of autism, ADHD, and speech or language delay.”

So.... There needs to be more science. In the meantime, don't you think that until the evidence is conclusive that thimerosol use should be discontinued. It only feeds the flames for the anti-vaccination kooks. The Salon article also cites several studies that do indeed conclude that Ethyl mercury is a neuro toxin in lab animals.

From Salon...
"You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe," says Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. "It's just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage."

In 1935, researchers at another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-Moore, warned Lilly that its claims about thimerosal's safety "did not check with ours." Half the dogs Pittman injected with thimerosal-based vaccines became sick, leading researchers there to declare the preservative "unsatisfactory as a serum intended for use on dogs."

In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that thimerosal killed mice when added to injected vaccines. Four years later, Lilly's own studies discerned that thimerosal was "toxic to tissue cells" in concentrations as low as one part per million -- 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine.
 
Morchella said:
... So.... There needs to be more science. In the meantime, don't you think that until the evidence is conclusive that thimerosol use should be discontinued. It only feeds the flames for the anti-vaccination kooks. The Salon article also cites several studies that do indeed conclude that Ethyl mercury is a neuro toxin in lab animals. ....

Already done for infant vaccine: http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/thimerosal/faqs-availfree.htm

(there is a link to the FDA that is also interesting reading)

Edited to add: Are you sure that is ethylmercury and not methylmercury ? Because this study showed that there was a vast difference:
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7712/7712.pdf
 
It seems to me this conflict is easy to solve:

Take thimerosal out of a sizable portion of the vaccines, keep track of who gets what, and see if there's any change in autism rates. Do this in a totally open manner, so there's no chance of a cover up or conversely, a conspiracy theory. That bares repeating: it MUST be totally open.

It looks like there's lots of studies that almost study the problem, but none directly answer the question at hand: is there any change in autism when thimerosal is removed? It's all based on: this study suggests it's bad, this study suggests it's ok. Christ, just do the study directly and be done with it.

Now I realize that it's too late to actually do it that way. They've removed it. Obviously, if there is no change, we can be pretty certain thimerosal wasnt the cause. But, say autism goes down, can we be sure removing thimerosal was the culprit? Not with 100% certainty, and trust me, there will be those who point that out. And the conflict will continue.

The goal is to find the answer, not argue over it.
 
Morchella said:
In the meantime, don't you think that until the evidence is conclusive that thimerosol use should be discontinued.
If we discontinued the use of every subtance that hasn't been proven safe, we'd all starve to death.


(Then again, one of the main criticisms of herbal remedies is that they can be marketed without first being proven safe, whereas pharmaceuticals cannot. Okay, so maybe this is a tougher call than it first seems.)
 
It's my understanding that Thimerosal was banned from vacines in Denmark and Canada around 1995.

If autism rates haven't dropped significantly in those countries, and I'm sure it would be being touted if they had, it's a pretty good indication the connection is bogus.
 
glsunder said:
It seems to me this conflict is easy to solve:

Take thimerosal out of a sizable portion of the vaccines, keep track of who gets what, and see if there's any change in autism rates. Do this in a totally open manner, so there's no chance of a cover up or conversely, a conspiracy theory. That bares repeating: it MUST be totally open.

Already done in the US. Currently only the nasal spray flue vaccination contains thimerosal.
 

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