Some have said that the mercury often found in a tuna sandwich has more mercury than the flu vaccine. But in fact, there is a difference between the mercury in fish (methylmercury) and the mercury in the form of thimerosal (ethylmercury) in vaccines.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducts mercury toxicity studies which involves contamination from fish, air, and other environmental sources. This study is about inorganic, or elemental mercury, like that found in a tuna sandwich. In the body, inorganic mercury can become organic, usually as methylmercury (as from tuna).
Dr. Tim O'Shea explains: Methylmercury has long been associated with serious neurological disorders, demyelinating diseases, gut disease, and visual damage. ((1) Merck)
The mercury in vaccines, however, is in the form of thimerosal. Once in the body, thimerosal is converted to a much more powerful organic form: ethylmercury. ((2) Bernard)
Studies show that thimerosal (ethylmercury) is far more toxic than methylmercury
Injected thimerosal (ethylmercury) is a much more toxic form of mercury than what one may acquire from eating open-sea fish (methylmercury). This has to do with the difficulty of clearing thimerosal from the blood. Ethylmercury has a major preference for nerve cells. Without a complete blood-brain barrier, an infant's brain and spinal cord are sitting ducks. Once in the nerve cells, mercury is actually changed back to the inorganic form, where it becomes tightly bound, and unable to cross back out through the blood brain barrier. ((3) Pederson, 1999). Mercury can then remain for years, like a time-release capsule, causing permanent degeneration and death of brain cells in an unpredictable fashion.
And this is how mercury can be the original and unidentifiable cause of virtually any permanent neurological disease that mysteriously pops up later in life. Also, the body normally clears mercury by fixing it to bile. But before six months of age, infants don't produce bile. Result: mercury can't be excreted. ((4) Koos and Longo, 1976)
Four separate government agencies have set safe levels for methylmercury, but no safe levels have ever been set for thimerosal, because thimerosal isn't included in toxicity studies! (5) Egan, 1999).
Drug makers agreed to phase thimerosal out of most vaccines after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found in1999 that mercury levels in children who had gotten multiple shots often exceeded safety levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Nonetheless, thimerosal remains in seasonal flu and swine flu vaccine as well as other vaccines (even when the insert says free of thimerosal, many contain trace amounts). By age two, American children have received 237 micrograms of mercury through vaccines alone, which far exceeds current EPA "safe" levels of .1 mcg/kg. per day. That's one-tenth of a microgram, not one microgram.
Just look at three days of infant vaccinations:
At birth, hepatitis B, contains 12 mcg mercury...that's 3 X the safe level. At four months, DtaP and HiB on the same day, contains 50 mcg mercury, that's 60 X the safe level. At six months, Hep B and Polio, contains 62.5 mcg mercury, that's 78 X the safe level.
Dr. Boyd Haley, one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity, chemistry department, University of Kentucky, warns, "You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe, it's just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, it will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage." (Deadly Immunity; RollingStone.com)
CDC epidemiologist, Tom Verstraeten, in June 2000, had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children. He announced that it appeared, thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines, was responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten said, as he cited the staggering number of earlier studies indicating a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism.
Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative, thimerosal, be given to extremely young infants - in one case, within hours of birth - the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children. (Deadly Immunity; Robert Kennedy,RollingStone.com)
The amount of mercury in a tuna sandwich doesn't compare to the toxicity of mercury in the form of thimerosal in vaccines. They are not the same.
Stay informed, eat well, live well.
For complete article see references and scientific research, by Tim O'Shea, D.C., San Jose, California
More information: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Explains the Autism Coverup Mercola.com
References:
1) The Merck Manual 17th edition, Merck Research Labs, 1999.
2) Bernard, S et al-- Autism: A Unique Type of Mercury Poisoning -ARC Research
April 3, 2000
3) Pedersen, MB et al. -- Mercury accumulations in brains - International Journal of Circumpolar Health-58(2)p96 -Apr 1999.
4) Koos & Longo --Mercury toxicity in pregnant women -Am J of Ob/Gyn 126(3) p. 390 Oct 1976.
5) Egan, W -- Thimerosal in vaccines -- FDA presentation - 14 Sep 1999.
Comments
Yep, I recommended my daughter not allow her children to have the hep B vaccine until older. HBV is not as much of a threat to children in the U.S. as it is in other countries. Anything that would help prevent the mercury buildup in their tiny bodies. Of course, she didn't listen and now has one autistic child. Can't say for certain that's what caused his autism, but it is one factor to be considered. Parents must learn to say NO and say it with their eyes open and armed with knowledge about the pros and cons of vaccines for infants.
Facts would have been nice, not the woowoo anti-vaccine misinformation regarding thimerosal.
As bad as it is Susie, it gets even worse when you consider that 90% of ingested mercury is eliminated from the body by the protective gastrointestional tract while vaccine mercury is injected into the muscles. This procedure provides rapid access to the bloodstream via the thousands of fine capillaries in the muscle. You are right, once in the brain ethylmercury (vaccines) leaves behind twice as much of the toxic Hg++ as ingested methylmercury. This has been confirmed from baby primate studies. Research from just the last month shows that primates exposed to the thimerosal preserved Hep.B vaccine lose all survival skills and mice were so messed up by the stuff they were unable to figure out how to get off a hotplate.
The fact in this article are both out of date and misleading. Ethylmercury is in fact cleared from the body faster that methylmercury. Several recent studies have confirmed this including one done recently at UC Davis studying mercury in autistic children. Also the EPA guidelines for mercury are for methly and very conservative so just applying those to ethyl is far from scientific. You are really misinforming people with this piece.
Andrew R, we all know ethylmercury quickly leaves the blood (not the body). It goes into the brain and kidneys. This is why the pharma sponsored researchers (like the ones from UC Davis) only do studies on the blood, to confuse people. The UC Davis study was a complete waist of taxpayer money. Not only does ethylmercury rapidily enter body tissue, what is left in the blood quickly converts to divalent mercury. This is why its more toxic than methylmercury. Divalent mercury has a half-life in the brain that lasts decades. This is the form that causes degenerative brain disease. Andrew, you are the one who is misinformed.
Jerry is either a scientist or reads large amounts of data. Thank you for your informative comment.
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