The Mercury Debate

[Guest guest]

- Deborah Delp (a.k.a. ladygrace 924 or jrsmom0800)

I am certain that for many of you this is old news; however there are fewwho may not know about this issue (or who have doubts about it) and who needto be made aware of the mounting evidence supporting the need to takemulti-dose vials and reformat them to single dose ones in order to eliminatethe need for preservatives and antigens. The evidence is here people. Butone must also keep in mind that vaccines aren't the only arena of exposure.Remember the dental fillings of old? Mercury is a key component of them (and the only way to getrid of the mercury vapor every time you eat something is to have themremoved). Also the consumption of certain seafoods during pregnancy (andkeep in mind that many women aren't even aware of their pregnancy forseveral weeks) all play into this as well. At ant rate here is yet another nail" for the "coffin" of denial that our government, medical communities(and particularly) the pharmaceutical industry would rather we not knowabout. Knowledge is power!....DEB _____________________ Thimerosal in Mandated Vaccinations is the Major Etiological Agent in theRecent Increase in Autism and Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder:Hypothesis Presented to Kentucky Assembly October 15, 2003 [by Boyd E. Haley, Professor and Chair, Department of Chemistry, Universityof Kentucky.] Since the early 1980s there has been a consistent elevation of therate of autism that appears to coincide with the increased exposure ofinfants to vaccinations that have been mandated by the CDC and approved bythe FDA. This has been done with good intentions as most agree thatvaccinations can greatly reduce the level of many infectious diseases.However, underlying this protection against infectious diseases by vaccineswas another apparent risk that has, in my opinion, lead to the tremendousincrease in neurological diseases such as autism, ADHD and other medicalproblems. The 714% increase in autism has, in my opinion, occurred through the early exposure of infants and toddlers to the compound thimerosal usedas a preservative in many vaccines. Thimerosal is a compound that breaks down in the body to releaseethyl-mercury, a very neurotoxic compound quite similar to methyl-mercuryfound in fish. However, ingestion of fish exposes any methyl-mercury to theintestines where about 65% of the heavy metal protective protein,metallothionine (MT), exists in the body. This MT has the ability to bindmercury and organic mercury rendering them much less toxic and leads totheir removal in the feces before they enter the blood stream. In contrast,vaccinations containing mercury by-pass the major protection provided by theintestinal MT as the ethyl-mercury directly enters the blood stream from thesite of injection. It has been documented that the amount of mercury theseinfants are exposed to at single visits to the doctors office are 30-70times the minimum safe level as determined by the EPA. The recommendation tomandate vaccinations of infants, even as early as on the day they were born,was made without adequate studies to determine that this was a safe procedure. It was primarily through the action of several "parents ofautistic children" organizations that this catastrophic occurrence wasbrought to the public’s attention. Today, using statistics from the US Dept.of Education, data on autistic children served through "Individual WithDisabilities Act" it was observed that from 1991-92 through 2001-02 a 714% increase in autism has occurred throughout the USA. In Kentucky the increasewas from 38 to 1,022; a 2,689% increase over this time period. There is little doubt about the increase in autism and relateddisorders since 1985. There is severe contention as to whether or notvaccines in general, and specifically thimerosal in particular, areinvolved in this epidemic of autism, etc. A review by the Institute ofMedicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Science (NAS) concluded that therewas no direct epidemiological connection between vaccinations and autism, but that thehypothesis of thimerosal toxicity causing autism was "biologically plausible. At this time the "biological plausibility" was supported by research frommy laboratory on thimerosal toxicity and the epidemiological studies werecommissioned by the CDC. A parents group called Safe Minds obtained the original CDC studies as well as minutes from a meeting onthimerosal and autism. It seems as if there were strong indications from theoriginal CDC epidemiological studies that thimerosal was involved, but thesedata were not presented at the IOM meeting nor have they ever been releasedexcept through the Freedom of Information Act extraction used by the Safe Minds organization. Rather, a rather cleansed version of this CDC study was presentedwhich has been challenged by many. Due to the political complexity andsensitive nature of the issue of the reliability of the CDC presentation Iwould encourage all of you to read up on this issue yourselves. In contrastto the CDC results, other researchers have gained access to the CDC’s vaccine adverse effects reporting system (VAERS) data and have completedepidemiological studies that strong imply that vaccinations are causal inautism (Geier & Geier, 2003). Epidemiological studies are a form ofstatistics and are prone to manipulation. However, scientific datacollection is much more detailed and, when data is published with details of the experimental approach, it is easy to have the studies repeated,evaluated and critiqued. What does published science have to say about thimerosal toxicity andthe possibility that this mercury containing compound may be involved inautism and related disorders? First, all of basic research has shown thatthimerosal at very low concentrations is extremely toxic to human cells,especially neurons. In essence, there are numerous research articles thatclearly describe the toxicity of thimerosal, even enough to warrant theremoval of this material from small animal vaccines in 1992. In the early1980s Russian researchers did work that caused them to conclude thatthimerosal has no place in vaccinations. Consider the actions that our owngovernment has taken regarding thimerosal in across-the-counter medications.Among others, the FDA has taken from the market mercurochrome, merthiolate,and contact lens solutions which contained thimerosal. Research keeps comingout now that the thimerosal issue is common knowledge to scientists thatshows that many biochemical pathways and many cell types are extremely sensitive to the toxic effects of thimerosal. Research that I have been involved in has shown that the amount ofthimerosal that is needed to cause neuronal damage is easily reached ininfants given the normal vaccine procedures. In fact, it would be quitepredictable that damage would be done when infants are given on at least 3days of their life before 1 year of age vaccine exposures to mercury that are 30-70 times above the EPA recommended safe level. I, in collaborationwith others, have measured the mercury levels in the birth-hair of normaland autistic children that was primarily contributed from the birth-mother’sdental amalgams. What we observed was data that clearly showed that autistic childrendo not excrete mercury as do normal children. This results in a much lowerblood levels of mercury and therefore lower levels of birth-hair mercurylevel in autistic children. The lower blood levels are due to the mercuryrapidly being taken up by the cells and not effectively excreted in autisticinfants. Further, the observation that the more severe the autism the lessmercury in the birth hair was additional proof of retention of mercury inthe autistic child. Therefore, autistic children represent a subset of thepopulation that cannot effectively excrete mercury and, being unable todetoxify themselves are more susceptible to mercury’s toxic effects. The other connection between thimerosal toxicity and autism comesfrom the observation that 4 of every 5 autistics are boys, a distinct genderbias. This ratio may be explained by the effects of estrogen versustestosterone on thimerosal toxicity. In our studies the female hormone wasprotective against toxicity whereas the testosterone dramatically increased the neuron killing capability of the thimerosal. This explanation wassupported by the observations by a Dr. Baron-Cohen in England who reportedthat the amniotic fluid of mothers who gave birth to autistic childrendiffered from the same fluid from mothers of normal children by only theelevated presence of testosterone. This can be evaluated that autisticchildren, on the day they are born, have higher testosterone levels and canbe much more sensitive to the thimerosal exposure from the first Hepatitis Bshot they receive that day. However, there is a push for research showing thimerosal safety bycertain groups who were positioned to be responsible for vaccine safety orwho are directly involved in the manufacturing of vaccines. There are twopapers regarding this issue (published in multiple sites) that have beenreleased recently that I feel need discussing. One, called the Danish study, contends that removal of thimerosal from their vaccines was followed by anincrease in autism thereby proving that thimerosal was not causal for thisdisease! An amazing claim when one considers the toxic potency of thimerosalHowever, according to their own records, the rate of autism in Denmarkbefore removal of thimerosal was about 0.2 per 10,000, an amazingly low rate! Note that this is lower than the pre-epidemic rate in the USA whichwas about 3-5 per 10,000. The current elevated rate the Danish report afterthe removal of thimerosal went up to 2-5 per 10,000 compared to the currentUSA rate of 67 per 10,000. Comparing the Danish rate to the USA or Britishrate is like comparing apples to cows! Therefore, a quick review of the Danish autism data system was doneand it showed that they kept very poor records, loosing autistic childrenfrom their early records, which likely accounts for their initialexceptionally low rates. It appears as if the recent keeping of more accurate records and the inclusion of other changes (such as changing thedescription of other diseases as now being autism) was the reason for recentapparent increase in recorded autism cases, not the removal of thimerosal.Common sense requires that one question any argument where the removal of apotent neurotoxin like thimerosal increases neurological problems. Looking at the broad picture, it should be noted that the Danishnever vaccinated their children on the day of birth as we have done in theUSA. Instead they waited several weeks to months before the firstvaccination and never approached the number of vaccinations or mercuryexposure levels that USA infants have been given before age one. Therefore,considering the autism rates in Denmark today (2-5 per 10,000) versus the USA rates (about67 per 10,000) one could logically conclude that the lower rates in Denmarkare due to exposing their infants to less vaccine derived mercury andexposing them only have a period of maturation. The second study needing discussion was presented in Lancet byPichichero et al. where they used about 36 children and measured thedecrease in blood mercury levels and also monitored fecal excretion levelsafter vaccinations containing thimerosal. Their conclusions were that the mercury from thimerosal cleared the blood with a half-time of 5 days or lessand therefore was not around long enough to cause toxic problems. They alsofound nanogram levels of mercury (ppb) in the feces and stated this as proofthat the mercury was being removed by fecal excretion. I evaluated thispaper with Mark Blaxill, a statistician, and we noted that, using the amounts excreted in the fecal material, that it would take much longer than5 days to remove the mercury that was found decreased in the blood. Wedetermined a minimum of about 74 days to greater than 1,339 days to excretethe amount of mercury in the feces that a USA child receives in their firstsix months (187.5 mcg). Therefore, the mercury that Pichichero et al. reported decreasing inthe blood of infants given thimerosal within the first 5 days is primarilybeing removed from the blood by being taken up by the infant’s centralnervous system cells and other tissues. It is not being excreted in thefeces or urine! In summary, there is sound scientific data available toindicate that thimerosal in vaccines would be the most likely suspect in therecent epidemic of autism. Epidemiological studies using the VAERS data-base from the CDCpresents strong evidence to conclude that the hypothesis that thimerosalexposures are the etiology of autism is correct. Studies comparing autisticto normal infants show that there is a major difference in the way these twogroups excrete mercury. Even normal children show great differences in theirability to excrete mercury. It appears as if autistic children do not effectively excrete mercuryand are therefore more sensitive to its toxic effects. There are manyindividuals, organizations and agencies that will be embarrassed by thisobservation as they did not consider the safety testing of early vaccinations before they encouraged the mandated vaccine policies that leadto the toxic mercury exposures in infants that greatly surpassed EPArecommended levels. This has lead to the publication, supported byaccompanying news releases, of articles that seem designed to come toconclusions that hold thimerosal as a harmless agent when given to infants. These articles never suggest any other hypothesis for the epidemic ofautism. In the end, thimerosal will be removed from all infant vaccines andthe truth will come out. Until then, our legislators have to recognize thatthe great increase in autism and related disorders will impose a huge coston our medical welfare system. It will also cost immensely in the loss ofhealthy, happy lives and a corresponding increase in the misery of theautistic children and their parents and family. Be At Peace, Deborah A Delp Mother to: Samantha (9, ADHD/ODD) JR (6, ASD/ADHD) E-Mail: dadelp What we do with our lives depends on our Motivation to do something with our lives. D.A.Delp More:http://CureZone.com/art/1.asp?C0=13 & C1=1http://curezone.com/art/1.asp?C0=735 & C1=1http://curezone.com/art/1.asp?C0=74 & C1=13 & C1=1http://curezone.com/art/1.asp?C0=735 & C1=1http://curezone.com/art/1.asp?C0=74 & C1=1