Rho-D question

[Guest guest]

Hopes this info is helpful with regard to the Rho-D question. It is taken from a letter I wrote to the IOM back during one of the reviews of thimerosal and adverse neurological outcomes.

Lyn

In 1990-91 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist adopted into their protocol for prenatal care a prophylactic injection of Rho-D immune globulin products for all Rh pregnant women at 28 weeks gestation. The thought was that some women may experience 3rd trimester bleeding that may not be reported to the obstetrician that could result in RH incompatibility disease in future pregnancies.

This recommendation was made in addition to the routine guidelines that RH- mothers receive RhoD immune globulins at any time during the pregnancy when the potential exists for maternal exposure to fetal blood, including invasive procedures like amniocentesis and villa sampling, or in the event of vaginal bleeding. With advancing technology, invasive diagnostic procedures during pregnancy have become more common.

There were several products available at the time which contained various amounts of thimerosal. (See the graph below). These products are supplied in pre-filled syringes, so the only way to calculate the exposure is to know the amount in the pre-filled syringe, which by the way varies by lot#. For example, the product I received was Gamulin and thru FOIA I was able to determine that the fill volume for that particular Lot # was 1.3 ml. The products contained a 0.01% concentration of thimerosal, so I received 130 mcg of thimerosal and 65 mcg of ethyl mercury injected at 14 and 28 weeks gestation.

In a recent published investigation by Holmes, 2003, demographic data was collected on children with autism. One of the highly significant findings (p<0.0002) was the fact that 43 out of 94 (46%) of the mothers of children with autism had received Rho-D products during the pregnancy compared to only 4 out of 34 (12%) of the control mothers. Several of the autistic mothers received multiple shots, which resulted in a mean number of Rho D immunoglobulin exposure in the autistic group of 0.52 shots per child as compared to 0.12 among the controls. According to the American Red Cross the incidence of RH- blood in the general population is 15%.

This observation is supported by a similar finding of elevated Rh incompatibility in mothers of autistic children in an article by Juul-Dam, Prenatal, Perinatal and Neonatal Factors in Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorders and the General Population in Pediatrics 2001 that rhesus incompatibility occurred at significantly higher rates in autistic children than controls.

Exposure to mercury during pregnancy is known to result in a higher percentage of the exposure transmitted to the fetus and documented adverse neurological outcomes.

Over the past decade exposure to thimerosal during pregnancy, infancy and early childhood has increased substantially due to professional policy decisions and the addition of thimerosal containing vaccines to the early infant schedule which essentially tripled infants exposure to mercury during the 1990’s.

Therefore any discussion of mercury or thimerosal exposure as it relates to autism should include the fact that vaccine mercury exposure occurs in addition to other sources of exposure which occur prenatally. This is supported by recently released data by the EPA that suggests approximately one in every six children born today are at risk for adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes from exposure to environmental mercury prenatally. Further exposure to mercury from thimerosal containing products only increases this unnecessary risk.

Lyn Redwood

Lyn Redwood RN, MSN

Pres. Safe Minds