Women fight to clear mercury from vaccines

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Women fight to clear mercury from vaccines

Thursday, July 28, 2005

By Kathleen Longcore

The Grand Rapids Press

Joan Reinardy doesn't want her three children getting

shots or vaccines that contain mercury, and she's

willing to put her money where her mouth is.

The Zeeland woman, her sister Joy Majzel, of

Hudsonville, and a friend, Sharon Wayner, of Hamilton,

raised $1,200 to put up billboards this week in Grand

Rapids, Hudsonville and Holland demanding flu shots

and vaccines that are free of thimerosal, a

mercury-containing preservative used since the 1930s.

They have enlisted the help of state Sen. Wayne

Kuipers, R-Holland, to draft legislation that would

ban the use of thimerosal in vaccines in Michigan.

Missouri, California, Iowa and Delaware already have

banned the preservative.

Reinardy said she became interested in the mercury

issue because her sister's 4-year-old daughter, Jenna,

is autistic. For more than a decade, there have been

reports linking autism with mercury from childhood

vaccines.

This link has been denied repeatedly by the CDC, the

Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of

Sciences. The Academy cites five large studies in the

United States and abroad that found no link between

thimerosal and autism. The latest was a 2004 study in

Denmark.

The CDC reports there are no harmful effects from

thimerosal in the minute amounts used in vaccines.

However, in July 1999, public health agencies,

pediatricians and vaccine manufacturers agreed

thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines

in the United States as a precautionary measure.

Reinardy said she couldn't find any flu vaccine last

fall without thimerosal, and she doesn't want her

healthy children exposed to even trace amounts.

The three women formed a local chapter of a national

group called Unlocking Autism. Recent national

meetings of that group have urged grassroots efforts

to ban thimerosal, including billboard campaigns.

" When Jenna got her shots, I had no idea there was

thimerosal with mercury in vaccines. But my husband

and I are not at all anti-vaccine, " said Joy Majzel,

32. " We know (the mercury-autism link) hasn't been

proven conclusively either way. But we do know mercury

is toxic, and kids shouldn't be getting anything

that's toxic. Who would argue with that? "

Majzel said even though her daughter got her shots

after the 1999 edict, she got stockpiled vaccines that

still had thimerosal. Some of those vaccines remain in

the pipeline, activists claim, with the last to expire

later this year.

With the exception of some flu vaccines, the CDC says

none of the vaccines recently manufactured to protect

children in this country against 12 infectious

diseases contains thimerosal.

But Dr. Coller of Zeeland disagrees.

Coller, a family-practice doctor who specializes in

the toxicology of metals such as lead and mercury,

maintains many vaccines still contain trace amounts of

mercury, used to kill viruses or other elements that

could taint a vaccine.

Trace amounts of mercury are added to multi-dose vials

of vaccine to keep it sterile, Coller said.

" The reason mercury is used is that it kills most

anything, " he said.

" We know that mercury causes neuro-degenerative

diseases such as Alzheimer's, " Coller said.

The Kent County Health Department has a list of

vaccines and the amounts of mercury they contain. A

spokeswoman said vaccines manufactured by Aventis

Pasteur in single doses contain no mercury.

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