Federal vaccine advisers are slated to vote on influenza vaccines and thimerosal.
Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are set to vote on June 26 on whether to recommend that the CDC act to remove thimerosal from influenza vaccines, raising hopes from people who have advocated eliminating the preservative.
“We are hopeful that the consideration of thimerosal will spark a thorough discussion that it deserves, hopefully leading to its removal from all vaccines,” Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times via email.
Thimerosal, approximately 50 percent mercury by weight, has been used in vaccines since the 1930s.
Concerns that the preservative could cause health problems resulted in a congressionally mandated 1999 review that concluded that some infants might be exposed to levels of mercury above recommended guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency.
A House of Representatives subcommittee in 2003, following the review, said that “mercury is hazardous to humans” and that it “should be minimized or eliminated entirely” from medicinal products.
The Food and Drug Administration, which has worked with companies to reduce or eliminate thimerosal from vaccines, says that the use of thimerosal has subsequently declined, but it maintains that studies “support the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines.”
Somestudies have identified associations between thimerosal and problems such as tics, while others havefound no link.
Multiple influenza vaccines still contain thimerosal, according to the CDC and FDA.
Sanofi and Seqirus, which produce influenza vaccines with thimerosal, did not respond to requests for comment.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, which receives funding from Sanofi and other vaccine manufacturers, states on its website, “Several valid scientific studies have shown there is no link between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former chairman of Children’s Health Defense, previously wrote on the organization’s website that thimerosal “is not safe in any form.” Children’s Health Defense describes its mission as “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure.”
Kennedy recently removed all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC on vaccines, and named eight new members. The draft agenda for the next committee meeting shows that the panel is set to vote on thimerosal-containing influenza vaccines.
