Dose of danger dressed up as protector

[Guest guest]

FINALLY IT HITS THE UK NEWS!

FINALLY!

Sheri

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=1902003

Dose of danger dressed up as protector

FRASER NELSON

WOULD you like your flu vaccine with mercury or without? Anyone familiar

with a toxic metal would not hesitate in their answer. But it's not a

question that anyone will be asked this winter.

How about your child's immunisations? Would you like a preservative-free

vaccine - or one which contains a substance which a US government's medical

adviser says has a " biologically plausible " link to autism?

This is the thimerosal debate. In the US, a it is huge storm involving

congressmen, medics, some £30 billion in lawsuits and a cover-up which has

left Washington mystified. But in the UK, the storm has yet to break.

Thimerosal is not new. It has been used since the Thirties to kill any

bacteria in vaccines - but by hugely controversial means. Its toxic power

is drawn from its main ingredient: mercury, second only to plutonium as the

most toxic element.

Once injected in the body, thimerosal breaks down into ethyl mercury - a

substance liable to bind with body protein and, most ominously, brain

tissue. Once lodged in the body, mercury traces are exceptionally difficult

to remove.

Worse, mercury is a proven neurotoxin - that is, even small doses have been

linked to brain defects including fibromyalgia, lupus and depression. It

has not taken US lawyers long to extend this trail to autism.

Other scientific studies have found that mercury placed next to brain

tissue leads to deformities associated with Alzheimer's disease. This is

the substance which the government believes is safe to put in flu vaccines.

There must be a good reason for this, is the immediate response. But this

is the most staggering part of the debate. Mercury is not needed in these

vaccines - indeed, mercury-free jabs are available across the NHS now. So

why is no-one being told?

This is being treated as a scandal in the US, where the House of

Representatives has set up a committee to investigate the issue. Suspicion

has been fuelled by the behaviour of the US Food and Drug Administration

(FDA), the supreme decision-making body on vaccines. It decided to phase

out mercury in three years ago. The FDA has adopted a somewhat

contradictory attitude. " Lead, cadmium, and mercury are examples of

elements that are toxic when present at relatively low levels, " it advises

chemists. But this is the same FDA which approves the intravenous injection

of such mercury in infants and pensioners.

It does not take a medical expert to spot something amiss. Mercury is a

neurotoxin - no-one disputes that. Its use in child vaccines was greatly

increased during the Nineties - a decade where autism spiralled. Mercury in

the brain induces deformities common to Alzheimer's. Might the two be

related?

The House of Representatives committee has produced two booklets of

evidence pointing to the danger of mercury in medicine. Meanwhile, the

lawyers, scenting a tobacco-style payout, have produced their own facts.

The US government has laid down what a " safe limit " of mercury for infants.

The committee found that the vaccination programme could leave children

with 41 times more mercury than that laid down by this limit - a key

finding which fuelled calls for its abolition from medicine.

This safe limit is based on studies of 900 children born in 1987 in the

Faroe Islands whose mothers had eaten mercury-contaminated whale meat. When

they grew up, these children had slower reaction times and diminished

attention spans.

The amount of mercury in their umbilical cord blood was minute - 0.1

micrograms per kilo. But even this trace of was enough to trigger a set of

neurological conditions commonly associated with autism.

Mercury is, after all, strong enough for the amount in a thermometer to

pollute a small lake. So how can any amount be considered safe? This is the

conclusion of Dan Burton, a congressman and the chairman of the special

committee, who asked that all mercury-containing vaccines be discontinued,

given that mercury-free substitutes are now available.

" To ignore an avoidable risk and to put 8,000 children a day in harm's way

is not only inhumane, it may be criminal, " he said in a report to

Bush, the US president.

The Department of Health does not use the term " avoidable risk " . It simply

says its committee for safety of medicines (CSM) has reviewed the issue and

" concluded that the risk- benefit balance of thimerosal-containing vaccines

remains overwhelmingly positive " . This is a trick statement. The CSM, it

says, believes that a mercury vaccine is safer than no vaccine at all. This

is true - but is a mercury-free vaccine safer than a thimerosal-based

vaccine? There is no answer on this point.

But the choice facing Britain is between a complete portfolio of

mercury-free vaccinations - including three out of the seven flu jabs being

made public this winter - or those still using thimerosal. The question is

why GPs are not advising patients that one vaccine contains mercury and the

other does not.

The latest statement was made last month by Lord Hunt, a health minister,

who said the CSM has its findings backed up by the Institute of Medicine

(IoM) in the US.

He said: " The IoM published a detailed review of the evidence relating to

possible neurotoxicity of thimerosal in vaccines in October 2001. The IoM

findings were consistent with the CSM conclusions. "

Lord Hunt is not telling the whole story. This was the same IoM report

which said the link between thimerosal and autism is " biologically

plausible " - and that the mercury may well kill enough brain cells to

scramble children's thinking.

Dr Marie McCormick, who chaired the IoM expert panel, advised parents to

ask doctors for mercury-free vaccines if they are available. Wise advice -

available from absolutely no-one in Britain.

The Department of Health says that the IoM report " concluded that the

evidence did not support a causal association between thimerosal contained

in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders. "

Here, for the second time, is a slightly misleading statement. No evidence?

Compare this to the FDA's summary of the same IoM report into thimerosal

safety.

" It concluded that the evidence is inadequate to either accept or reject a

causal relationship between thimerosal exposure to childhood vaccines and

neurodevelopmental disorders of autism, " it said.

It is, in other words, a grey area. Mercury may lead to autism; it may not

- we don't have the evidence to accept or reject this. We just don't know.

So why is the Department of Health not admitting this doubt? It may be

connected to the 200 lawsuits which were filed, claiming a total of £30

billion on behalf of parents of autistic children. This was seen off by the

US government when it passed the anti-terrorist homeland security bill last

month - guaranteeing Eli Lilly & Co, a former maker of thimerosal,

protection from multi-million-dollar lawsuits.

What had this to do with terrorism? Not very much - but it is a sign of how

seriously the link between thimerosal and autism is being taken in the

United States. The Department of Health is falling increasingly victim to

the compensation culture.

There is one final aspect to the IoM report which is not being reproduced

in the UK. It urged that " full consideration be given to removing

thimerosal from any biological product to which infants, children and

pregnant women are exposed " .

The ish Parliament has the power to ban all mercury from vaccines now.

Health is devolved, the vaccines are available and GPs have the freedom to

order what they want. It can be an example of Holyrood using its smaller

size to innovate.

The medical evidence is mounting. One study suggests it is hypersensitivity

to thimerosal, not necessarily mercury poisoning, which triggers autism. A

new study into mercury and Alzheimer's is expected later this year.

In the mean time, being injected with traces of ethyl mercury is a risk

that no-one in Britain needs to take. The latest, mercury-free vaccines are

freely available on the NHS - for those who know how to ask for them by

name. Sooner or later, the government will tell us about it.

--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

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******

" Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.

Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy

knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information

and religions destroy spirituality " .... Ellner