From: Robina Suwol
Date: 07 Apr 2004
Time: 01:48:57
Remote Name: 66.190.70.174
CDC won't warn parents on shots with mercury
By Myron Levin, Los Angeles Times, 4/2/2004
LOS ANGELES -- Hundreds of thousands of infants and toddlers who get flu shots
starting this fall could be exposed to a mercury-laced preservative that has
been all but eliminated from other pediatric vaccines because of health
concerns.
Saying that there is no proof of harm from exposure to the preservative
thimerosal, officials with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
have confirmed that they won't advise parents and doctors to choose a
mercury-free version of the flu vaccine.
This year, flu shots are being added to the government's list of vaccines
recommended for all young children. The CDC decision, made despite pleas from
parent activist groups and some specialists, seems to be at odds with recent
federal warnings about exposure to mercury, a potent neurotoxin and with the
government's successful effort to see mercury removed from other childhood
vaccines.
The mercury-free flu vaccine will be more expensive, by about $4 per shot,
because it is somewhat harder to make in large quantities than the alternative.
If the CDC were to warn parents, demand for thimerosal-free shots would rise,
possibly squeezing supplies. Some
specialists said there was a greater risk in infants and toddlers failing to be
vaccinated against the flu because of a shortage than in their being vaccinated
with shots containing mercury.
CDC executives would not discuss their decision but said in a statement that
"the available scientific evidence has not shown thimerosal-containing vaccines
to be harmful."
The American Academy of Pediatrics, which has a membership of 57,000 physicians,
is backing the CDC.
But the agency has come under blistering attack from some parent groups. By not
advising parents and physicians, the government is "violating the precautionary
principle which reminds doctors that, when in doubt, take an action which
minimizes the risk of harm," said Barbara Loe Fisher, cofounder of the National
Vaccine Information Center, a parent-led group that promotes safer vaccines.
Representative David Weldon, Republican of Florida, said he planned to introduce
a bill to ban thimerosal in childhood vaccines. The CDC refusal to recommend
mercury-free shots "is medical malpractice," Weldon said. A physician who has a
young son, he said he
would not let the child have a mercury-containing shot.
Preservatives are used by drug companies to prevent the growth of bacteria and
fungi in their vaccines.
Thimerosal, which is nearly 50 percent ethyl mercury, had long been the
preservative of choice.
That changed in 1999, when the US Public Health Service and the pediatrics group
called on manufacturers to voluntarily remove thimerosal from pediatric vaccines
as a precaution.
In doing so, they acknowledged a major oversight: Under the country's
increasingly aggressive policy of childhood immunizations, infants were being
repeatedly exposed to mercury in cumulative doses far above Environmental
Protection Agency guidelines.
Since then, vaccine producers have virtually eliminated thimerosal from
regularly scheduled childhood vaccines.
Some parent groups and researchers believe that thimerosal has contributed to a
sharp increase in reported rates of autism and other developmental disorders in
children. Nearly 4,000 compensation claims have been filed in a special vaccine
injury branch of the US Court of Claims on behalf of children with
autism-related disorders.
Vaccine makers and many scientists dispute the connection, arguing, among other
points, that the exposures are too low and that ethyl mercury is more easily
eliminated from the body than methyl mercury -- the type produced by industrial
emissions that ends up in fish.
The CDC's neutrality on thimerosal in flu vaccines comes amid a spate of blunt
warnings from other federal agencies about reducing methyl mercury levels in
infants and toddlers, whose brains and nervous systems are rapidly developing.