Bush Plans to Veto Removal of Mercury
       From Infant Vaccines

July 24 2007   

Despite a 2004 campaign promise to the contrary, President Bush continues to allow the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal to be added to childhood flu vaccines. 

Thousands of parents believe the preservative has caused mercury poisoning and autism in their children. Still, President Bush plans to veto the HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill, which includes a measure to ban childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, because of the cost and “objectionable provisions.”

As it stands, flu vaccines which contain thimerosal, are recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children, even though the Institute of Medicine recommended in 2001 that these population groups not be exposed to thimerosal-containing vaccines.

One in every six women of childbearing age has enough mercury in their bloodstream to cause neurological damage to their unborn children, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Joint Statement Of The American Academy Of Pediatrics And The American Public Health Service Regarding Mercury In Vaccines 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act of 1997 called for the FDA to review and assess the risk of all mercury containing food and drugs. In line with this review, U.S. vaccine manufacturers responded to a December 1998 and April 1999 FDA request to provide more detailed information about the thimerosal content of their preparations that include this compound as a preservative.

Thimerosal has been used as an additive to biologics and vaccines since the 1930's because it is very effective in killing bacteria used in several vaccines and in preventing bacterial contamination, particularly in opened multi-dose containers. Some, but not all, of the vaccines recommended routinely for children in the United States, contain thimerosal. The recognition that some children could be exposed to a cumulative level of mercury over the first six months of life that exceeds one of the federal guidelines on methyl mercury now requires a weighing of two different types of risks when vaccinating infants.

On the one hand, there is the known serious risk of diseases and deaths caused by failure to immunize our infants against vaccine-preventable infectious diseases; on the other, there is the unknown and probably much smaller risk, if any, of neuro-developmental effects posed by exposure to thimerosal.

MMR Vaccine Does Not Contain Mercury, Thiomersal, Thimerosal and It Never Has

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