Study refuting mercury-autism link flawed.

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Study doesn't show mercury laced vaccines are safe. http://tinyurl. com/2k2yzw <http://tinyurl. com/2k2yzw> By David Liu, Ph.D. Feb 2, 2008 - 6:06:52 PM SATURDAY FEB 2, 2008 (Foodconsumer. org) -- A small study released in the Feb 1, 2008 issue of Pediatrics shows that HEALTHY infants can rid mercury used as a preservative in vaccines more quickly than previously thought after receiving thimerosal-laced pediatric vaccines. Thimerosal some consumers and experts claim has an association with the ever-increasing incidence of autism in the United States although some studies somehow failed to show any link between the two. The study was seemingly intended to offer more

evidence that the link between the increased risk of autism and administration of thimerosal-loaded vaccines did not exist. In the study of 72 newborns (group 1), 72 infants aged 2 months (group 2) and 72 infants aged 6 months (group 3), the researchers gave one shot of a vaccine to the infants in different groups and measured the mercury levels in the blood, stool and urine before and after the vaccination. Blood samples were collected only from 128 children - 40 newborns, 50 infants aged 2 months and 38 infants aged 6 months as samples were not available from other children. Another 17 children included in the analysis did not give adequate amounts of blood for mercury determination either. The data collected were pooled together to do some pharmacokinetics study although not all infants gave a complete set of measurements of mercury in different samples. The researchers found mercury in all

the stool samples after vaccination in all 3 groups, but not in any urine samples, meaning mercury was got rid of mostly through the gastrointestinal tract. They also found the half-life for blood mercury was about 3.7 days for newborns, 2.0 days for 2 month-olds and 2.2 days for 6-month-olds. The excreted mercury in stool samples was highest soon after vaccination and the highest level was 8 ng/ml blood. This was the same for every group. The levels of mercury in blood samples were different, meaning that the individual response to the toxin varied. The authors said in their report that low levels of mercury in the blood signaled low risk for toxicity from this vaccine exposure. However, the blood level did not explain how mercury affects the tissue, which was viewed by the authors as a drawback of the study. One significant finding of the study in the writer's opinion is that the magnitude of

exposure of vaccines may not pose much of a risk to the kidneys. But the finding that the level of mercury after vaccination became soon as the same as the level before vaccination does not mean that the exposure to the mercury did not cause any damage. Injured cells can be killed by the body and the dead cells can be excreted in this case probably with mercury. The authors acknowledged also in their report that the measurement of blood mercury may not be as accurate as desired because it represented a mixture of organic species with different sources of exposure and different intrinsic half-lives. More importantly, the authors admitted that "our measurements are unable to determine the fate of the mercury after it leaves the blood, because our sampling was limited to blood, urine, and stool, and we did not collect 24-hour samples; therefore the data do not allow any conclusions about the proportion of

administered ethyl mercury that is ultimately excreted in stools or the time course of that excretion, only that some excretion seems to occur by the gastrointestinal route and that the kidneys do not seem to play an important role." One critical drawback is that the results represented the whole small study population (about 120 infants), meaning that the outcomes of the mercury toxicity in each individual infant may vary greatly. Also the results were for the healthy infants only and no one knows anything for sure what will happen to the not-so-healthy infants or preemies? In the writer's opinion, the sampling size was also too small (only about 120 submitted a complete set of samples) and too narrow (it only included healthy infants with gestational ages of more than 32 weeks and without any health problems as postnatal examinations showed). The autism rate in the United States is about one in every 150

children. With this small sampling size, errors and technical biases are more than likely possible. Dr. Pichichero has served as consultant to the World Health Organization and also in the past to vaccine manufacturers including GSK Biologicals, sanofi pasteur, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and MedImmune. The study was sponsored by the U.S. government. In the writer's opinion, the current study provided some new information, but not enough evidence to negate the notion that thimerosal-laced vaccines do not cause harm. In the writer's opinion, any more study now and in the future intending to disprove the link between increased risk of autism and thimerosal vaccines may imply that the safety of vaccines had not been thoroughly tested before it was put on the market. According to David Kirby, the author of "Evidence of Harm <http://www.evidence ofharm.com/> "- a book revealing the link between autism and vaccines, a congresswoman proposed a study last year to compare the rates of autism in both vaccinated children and non-vaccinated children to determine how the vaccination could make any difference. But he posted his comment on news.google. com <http://www.news. google.com/> questioning why the government has not taken any action to initiate such a study.Think Simply. Think Wisely. Curb Semantics. Speak the Truth.

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