Merck Memo and the Media

[Eos of the Eons]

Memo In Question:

http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2005-02/16191308.pdf

Idiot Media take...typical

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vaccine8feb08,0,624328.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The March 1991 memo, obtained by The Times, said that 6-month-old children who received their shots on schedule would get a mercury dose up to 87 times higher than guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of mercury from fish.

NO, the memo says that in 6 months worth of shots the kids would get 87 times the recommended daily dose. Big difference than what the liar journalist is trying tell people.

A six month dose, according the memo would be 200 ug. No kid gets a six month dose, ever. They get shots over six months.

Using their logic we can divide the six month dose to see what the child would have to get every day for six months to get the entire dosage after six months.

That is divide 200 by 182.5 days. That equals 1.1 ug daily. That is less than the recommended daily dose of 2.3 ug.

Not only that, but the idiot journalist lies about mercury making up 50% of the preservative. No, it makes up almost 50% of the weight of the preservative since mercury is so much heavier than the rest of the ingredients.

Don't get me started on the rest of the article!

I really hate the media sometimes.

 

[Chris Haynes]

You should check out what the Associated Press did with that story. While summerizing for their customers they added a wee bit. From http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2005-02-08-merck-mercury_x.htm

Thimerosal contains mercury and was once used in the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

eeeee......................

Speechless, utterly.

Okay...edited to add...I just tried to write a letter to the editor. A valid USA zip code is required via their process. Sigh.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Sorry for two posts in a row, but I wanted to quote something else from the memo...I can't copy the words, so will post from reading:

thimerosal is Phenyl Mercurial and is "perhaps" 1/10 as toxic as the methyl and ethyl mercurial salts...the calculations by Gerstner and Huff are for methyl mercury (that is perhaps 10 times as toxic as phenalic mercury)

 

[geni]

To be fair it is quite hard to describe thimerosal in non technical language.

Wikipedia describes it as:

an organometallic compound containing mercury

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimerosal

And that was only after an interesting set of arguments

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Sorry geni, but So?
There's no excuse for the way they presented the information in these "news stories". It seems they never bothered to read the entire memo and don't even care to...or they don't care to present things factually. Heck, they've printed outtright misinformation, especially about the MMR.

The usual. I'm disgusted with the media again.

 

[geni]

Sorry geni, but So?
There's no excuse for the way they presented the information in these "news stories". It seems they never bothered to read the entire memo and don't even care to...or they don't care to present things factually. Heck, they've printed outtright misinformation, especially about the MMR.

The usual. I'm disgusted with the media again.

The problem is the way you present your facts. Media people seem to have missed a science lession or to at some point (with a few notable exceptions). Saying it is just under 50% mercury by weight but that is a stupid way to present the numbers doesn't work.

You need your own spin numbers. Thimerosal is ~4.5% mercury by number of atoms (the exact value depends on wheather you include the sodium).

Saying 1.1 ug daily is bad because of all the stuff about culative effects (it's also just a touch missleading but all's fair when dealing with vaccinaton). Instead present it as less than half of what the body could be expected to get from other sources.

Don't call the stuff a perservative that sounds artifical. Admitedly calling it an organic compund isn't quite true (even though it is very much carbon based) however organo metalic hasn't caught yet as a bad word as far as I am aware.

However since the stuff is being striped out of a lot of vacines I suspect we are going to see more of the overloading the immune system argument.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

The problem is the way you present your facts. Media people seem to have missed a science lession or to at some point (with a few notable exceptions). Saying it is just under 50% mercury by weight but that is a stupid way to present the numbers doesn't work.

You need your own spin numbers. Thimerosal is ~4.5% mercury by number of atoms (the exact value depends on wheather you include the sodium).

Saying 1.1 ug daily is bad because of all the stuff about culative effects (it's also just a touch missleading but all's fair when dealing with vaccinaton). Instead present it as less than half of what the body could be expected to get from other sources.

Don't call the stuff a perservative that sounds artifical. Admitedly calling it an organic compund isn't quite true (even though it is very much carbon based) however organo metalic hasn't caught yet as a bad word as far as I am aware.

However since the stuff is being striped out of a lot of vacines I suspect we are going to see more of the overloading the immune system argument.

Yes, I only brought up the 1.1 because it is just as stupid as the 87x number...like I said, it's their faulty logic. I would never use that as info in a news story.

Thank you geni, good numbers! If I do manage to write anything to the media, then this will help immensely.

In fact, if anybody can write to the newspapers, particularly to the ones in question, please do! Please! I don't have the valid "zip code" needed.