Multi-dose vials of flu vaccine clearly still contain the preservative thimerosal.
Believe it or not, your kids aren’t going to be exposed to any heavy metals when they get their routine vaccines.
The closest that they might come would be getting a flu vaccine with thimerosal, as mercury is indeed a heavy metal and thimerosal breaks down to ethylmercury. But then, the great majority of flu vaccines are now thimerosal-free, so they probably won’t.
Even if they did, it is important to note that thimerosal was removed from vaccines as a precaution, not because it was toxic.
It is no secret that many vaccines contain aluminum.
“Aluminum is a heavy metal with known neurotoxic effects on human and animal nervous systems. It can be found in the following childhood vaccines – DTaP, Pediarix (DTaP-Hepatitis B-Polio combination), Pentacel (DTaP-HIB-Polio combination), Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae B (HIB), Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), and Pneumococcal vaccines.”
NVIC on Aluminum and Vaccine Ingredients: What Do We Know? What Don’t We Know?
Heavy metals include copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, platinum, plutonium, silver, tin, and zinc.
Aluminum is classified as a light metal. Other light metals are calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium.
I guess that it makes aluminum sound scarier if you say it is a heavy metal though…
It also make it sound scary if you imply that the aluminum salts in vaccines are neurotoxic. They aren’t.
But what about the idea that vaccines are contaminated with heavy metals?
“Metals including toxic lead contaminate virtually all aluminum adjuvants, a widely-used ingredient of human and animal vaccines, according to a recent study published in the leading journal of the vaccine industry.”
CMSRI on Lead, Iron, Chromium and Other Metals Routinely Contaminate Vaccine Adjuvants, Industry Study Reports
While that was the CMSRI takeaway from the study, Influence of elemental impurities in aluminum hydroxide adjuvant on the stability of inactivated Japanese Encephalitis vaccine, IXIARO, if you actually read it, you find that they found that “all aluminum hydroxide lots examined in this study met” safety guidelines from European agencies (Ph. Eur. 2.4.8) and the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP 231).
And many folks think that a study ‘finding’ contamination by a few Italian scientists, New Quality-Control Investigations on Vaccines: Micro- and Nanocontamination, actually found “that vaccines are incredibly pure.”
“I am a Biologist (University of Stirling) with a PhD in the ecotoxicology of aluminium (University of Stirling). My research career (1984-present) has focussed upon an intriguing paradox; ‘how come the third most abundant element of the Earth’s crust (aluminium) is non-essential and largely inimcal to life’. Investigating this mystery has required research in myriad fields from the basic inorganic chemistry of the reaction of aluminium and silicon to the potentially complex biological availability of aluminium in humans. I am also fascinated by the element silicon in relation to living things which, as the second most abundant element of the Earth’s crust, is also almost devoid of biological function. One possible function of silicon is to keep aluminium out of biology (biota) and this forms a large part of the research in our group. We are also interested in biological silicification.”
What do other people think of Dr. Exley and his work?
“Let me put this straight, this is not a paper that has evidence of scientific fraud or data manipulation. There is no duplicated images, no suspicious blots. The problem I have with this paper is its deep experimental flaws and data analysis that nonetheless should not have passed through the peer-review filter.”
Does the latest paper from Exley show a link between ASD and aluminum?
While it is typically strange to talk about fraud and data manipulation when starting to review a scientific study, remember that other aluminum studies, including other aluminum studies that were also funded by the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), were recently retracted.
In addition to performing deeply flawed studies about aluminum, Chris Exley gives lectures about aluminum toxicity at so-called vaccine safety conferences. At one 2011 conference, in addition to Exley talking about The systemic toxicity of aluminium adjuvants, you could have heard presentations by:
Russell Blaylock, MD on The central role of immunoexcitotoxicity in aluminum and mercury-containing adjuvant-triggered neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders
Shiv Chopra, MSc, PhD on Vaccination programs: prevention or corruption?
John Barthelow Classen, MD on Vaccine induced epidemics of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes/obesity/metabolic syndrome, and their relationship to the epidemic of autoimmune autism
Barbara Loe Fisher, President & Founder of NVIC on Medical science & public trust: the policy, ethics and law of vaccination in the 20th & 21st Centuries
Lawrence Palevsky, MD, FAAP on Rethinking the germ theory
Christopher Shaw, PhD on Aluminum as a neurotoxin: the evidence from cell culture, in vivo, and human studies
Yehuda Shoenfeld, MD, FRCP on ASIA – Autoimmune (Auto-inflammatory) Syndrome induced by Adjuvant: a new syndrome to be defined
Lucija Tomljenovic, PhD on Gardasil: prophylaxis or medical misconduct? and Aluminum adjuvants and immunization science: a matter of pervasive uncertainty
Andrew Wakefield, MB, BS on Autism and vaccines: a research strategy focused on cause
Chris Exley keeps interesting company if he doesn’t want to be thought of as someone who is anti-vaccine…
Interestingly, he also believes that we are living in The Aluminum Age.
“The human race has inadvertently agreed to participate in a clinical trial to assess and understand the toxicity of human exposure to aluminium. This is an experiment which is, of course, ongoing as I write and you read this essay. It is an experiment which has neither been submitted for independent peer review nor received ethical approval.”
And he seems fairly sure that aluminum is responsible for a whole host of diseases, from Alzheimer’s and autism to diabetes.
Why hasn’t research been done to figure out whether or not aluminum is safe?
“While there are thousands of scientific publications over many decades demonstrating the toxicity of aluminium in all living things the larger questions concerning aluminium and common human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease or diabetes remain unanswered or at best equivocal. These questions remain unanswered primarily because neither the global aluminium industry nor governments which have allowed the unfettered growth of the use of aluminium products are prepared for an answer. Try to imagine the immediate and short term economic consequences of human exposure to aluminium being directly linked as causal or even contributory in just one disease, for example Alzheimer’s disease.”
“The ensuing chaos and stock market crashes would be unpalatable but they would just be the beginning of a world which would now have to change to address and accommodate such knowledge. Now that the tip of the iceberg has become visible the remainder would have to be investigated and the inevitable consequences of human exposure to aluminium would be revealed, piece by piece, and a new jigsaw of life on Earth would slowly be pieced together.”
Just like it was a conspiracy that there was a “tsunami of silence perpetuated by all mainstream media, almost globally” following his deeply flawed study that he thought linked aluminum adjuvants in vaccines and autism.
More than the criticism, it seems that Chris Exley was really bothered that his latest research was ignored…
What’s next for Exley?
You can be sure it will be something about aluminum toxicity…
What to Know About Chris Exley
Professor Chris Exley is an expert on telling folks that aluminum is toxic.
More than 10 years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a position paper stating that “aluminum is now being implicated as interfering with a variety of cellular and metabolic processes in the nervous system and in other tissues.”
Lawrence Palevsky, MD on Aluminum: The New Mercury?
Palevsky wasn’t the only doc to try and shift parents’ fears onto aluminum.
He wasn’t even the first to make it sound like the AAP had been warning about aluminum for years and years.
Bob Sears, MD seems to have that honor with his 2008 article in Mothering Magazine, Is Aluminum the New Thimerosal?.
“As a medical doctor, my first instinct was to worry that these aluminum levels far exceed what may be safe for babies. My second instinct was to assume that the issue had been properly researched, and that studies had been done on healthy infants to determine their ability to rapidly excrete aluminum. My third instinct was to search for these studies. So far, I have found none. It’s likely the FDA thinks that the kidneys of healthy infants work well enough to excrete aluminum before it can circulate through the body, accumulate in the brain, and cause toxic effects. However, I can find no references in FDA documents that show that using aluminum in vaccines has been tested and found to be safe.”
Bob Sears, MD
Unlike Dr. Bob, my first instinct when faced with a situation like this is to look to someone with a little more expertise before scaring folks away from vaccinating and protecting their kids. And do you know what all of those experts say – aluminum salts in vaccines are safe.
Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends in 2010 for the segment “Vaccines: A Bad Combination?”
That’s not surprising, because just about everything Dr. Bob warned about and somehow equated with vaccines, was really about premature neonates and infants getting daily intravenous fluids and IV feeding solutions over prolonged periods of time, especially premature neonates and infants with impaired kidney function. Although aluminum toxicity wasn’t thought to be a common problem, even in these situations, it was thought to be enough of a risk that doctors were warned about it, and TPN fluid was limited to no more than 25 micrograms per liter of aluminum.
And that’s why the AAP had issued their position paper.
Now, would a premature baby getting IVF or an IV feeding solution containing aluminum every day for several weeks or months ever really be thought of as being at the same risk as an infant who gets a few aluminum salt containing vaccines at their well checkups?
No, it is clearly not the same thing.
“We conclude that episodic exposures to vaccines that contain aluminum adjuvant continue to be extremely low risk to infants and that the benefits of using vaccines containing aluminum adjuvant outweigh any theoretical concerns.”
Mitkus et al on Updated aluminum pharmacokinetics following infant exposures through diet and vaccination.
And not surprisingly, the aluminum salts that kids get in vaccines have been shown to be safe.
“Importantly, aluminum has a good safety record in which reported adverse events have been limited to acute local reactions.”
Glanz et al. on Cumulative and episodic vaccine aluminum exposure in a population-based cohort of young children.
Don’t believe the new anti-vaccine propaganda about aluminum and don’t let it scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.
“We found no evidence that aluminium salts in vaccines cause any serious or long-lasting adverse events.”
Jefferson et al. on Adverse events after immunisation with aluminium-containing DTP vaccines: systematic review of the evidence.
Although most anti-vaccine folks have moved on to aluminum by now, some are still sticking by thimerosal as their favorite “toxin” in vaccines to blame for causing so-called vaccine-induced diseases.
“Well, here are the numbers. And the numbers change every year. I think in 2012, there were 185 million doses of flu doses manufactured in this country. And I think fewer than 10 million were thimerosal-free. Over 90 percent had huge, huge doses of mercury.”
An interview with Robert Kennedy Jr. on vaccines
Really?
Huge, huge doses of mercury?
Thimerosal Timeline
Although it was never actually linked to any significant side effects, as a “precautionary measure,” the AAP recommended that thimerosal (mercury) be removed from childhood vaccines in 1999.
Thimerosal was removed from the hepatitis B, DTaP, and Hib vaccines, the only routinely used, non-flu vaccines that ever had thimerosal, in 2001. It is important to note that thimerosal-free versions of the DTaP and Hib vaccines were already available in the late 1990s though.
By January 2003, remaining stocks of vaccines with thimerosal expired.
Also in 2003, thimerosal-free flu vaccines became available, including thimerosal-free flu shots and FluMist, the nasal spray flu vaccine.
Is he right about the number of thimerosal-free flu vaccines in 2012?
Let’s do the math.
Ever since thimerosal-free flu vaccines became available in 2003, the supply has increased each year.
2007-08: 112 million doses, with 10-12 million doses of thimerosal-free flu vaccine from Sanofi Pasteur, 7 million doses of thimerosal free FluMist, plus Afluria was thimerosal-free, and flu vaccines with trace thimerosal from Novartis and GSK
2008-09: 110 million doses, with 50 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine and only 25% infants and toddlers are fully vaccinated against flu
2009-10: 114 million doses, with 50 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine
2010-11: 155 million doses, with 74 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine
2011-12: 132 million doses, with 79 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine
2012-13: 134 million doses, with 62 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine, including 13 to 14 million doses of FluMist. While 76% of infants and toddlers were vaccinated, only 50% of pregnant women got a flu shot.
2013-14: 134 million doses, with 62 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine. 13 million doses of FluMist.
2014-15: 147 million doses, with 98 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine. 14 to 15 million doses of FluMist.
2015-16: 146 million doses, with 116-118 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine
2016-17: 145 million doses, with 120 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine
2017-18: 155 million doses, with 130 million doses of thimerosal-free or preservative-free (trace thimerosal) influenza vaccine
So Kennedy was wildly wrong about the number of thimerosal-free flu vaccines that were available in 2012. And he is certainly wrong about the number of thimerosal-free flu vaccines that are available today.
“Over 90 percent had huge, huge doses of mercury. Not trace amounts as the industry likes to claim. Trace amounts means less than 1 microgram. They contain 25 micrograms, which is 25 times trace amount and over 100 times what EPA’s safe exposure levels are. … So today, in the last three or four years, that number has been reduced to 48 million.” Which number has been reduced to 48 million?
“I believe this year there were 150, around 150 million flu doses manufactured and 48 million of those, or a third, were loaded with mercury.”
An interview with Robert Kennedy Jr. on vaccines
What about his theory about the way the “industry” uses the term trace amounts?
The thimerosal content of flu vaccines has always been clearly labeled, whether it is 25mcg, or less than 1mcg, a trace amount.
There has never been a conspiracy to hide the thimerosal content of flu shots or any other vaccines. Those with trace amounts of thimerosal clearly have less than or equal to 1mcg per dose. Others were either thimerosal free or contained a standard amount of thimerosal, 25mcg.
Not surprisingly, this isn’t the first time Kennedy has tried to mislead people about vaccines.
“There is no question that meningococcal meningitis is a serious disease that can cause death and disability, but we need to ensure that the solution is not worse than the problem. There is every reason to believe that mandatory meningococcal B vaccines for every college student could kill more students than the disease they protect against. Before we relinquish our rights, pay millions and sicken students, we should do the math.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Doing the math on meningitis vaccinations
A few years ago, Kennedy responded to a resolution that had been passed by the University of Colorado-Boulder student government about new meningococcal B vaccines.
Students at the University of Colorado Boulder passed a resolution supporting MenB vaccines.
For some reason, he devoted a good deal of time talking about the “hefty mercury load” that kids could get from Menomune, a vaccine that doesn’t cover the meningococcal B strain and which has largely been replaced by the newer Menactra (2006) and Menveo (2010) vaccines. In fact, Menomune was discontinued last year.
What to Know About Robert F Kennedy, Jr
Kennedy seems to mislead people about thimerosal and vaccines at every opportunity he can.
Are you looking for more information about the ingredients in the vaccines your kids are about to get?
Have you tried one of those vaccine ingredient calculators?
Should You Use a Vaccine Ingredient Calculator?
As you do your research and look at the risks and benefits of your vaccine decision, you should know that those vaccine ingredient calculators that claim to help reduce toxins aren’t really helping you make an informed decision.
Calculate which vaccine-preventable diseases your child will be protected from when he gets vaccinated.
They are a propaganda tool that simply works to increase fear about vaccines by making you think that you need to do a vaccine lot search, compare vaccine brands, or work to reduce exposures to specific ingredients.
Why would you need to do a lot search? There are no hot lots of vaccines that you need to avoid.
Why would you need to compare vaccines based on their brands? Vaccines are safe. Vaccine ingredients are safe. Although the ingredients might vary a bit based on the brand of vaccine, that isn’t going to impact how well a vaccine works or it’s side effects.
Depending on the brand, don’t some vaccines do contain more aluminum than others?
“The alternative suggests only one aluminum-containing vaccine at a time in the infant years (the right brands must be chosen). By spreading out the shots, you spread out the exposure so infants can process the aluminum without it reaching toxic levels.”
Bob Sears in The Vaccine Book
The FDA states that “the amount of aluminum in the recommended individual dose of a biological product shall not exceed” 0.85 to 1.25 milligrams.
Not surprisingly, no vaccine exceeds that approved amount of aluminum, no matter what brand you choose.
Why do anti-vaccine folks scare parents into thinking that their kids are getting exposed to potentially toxic levels of aluminum from vaccines?
“WARNING: This product contains aluminum that may be toxic. Aluminum may reach toxic levels with prolonged parenteral administration if kidney function is impaired. Premature neonates are particularly at risk because their kidneys are immature, and they require large amounts of calcium and phosphate solutions, which contain aluminum.
Research indicates that patients with impaired kidney function, including premature neonates, who receive parenteral levels of aluminum at greater than 4 to 5 [micro]g/kg/day accumulate aluminum at levels associated with central nervous system and bone toxicity. Tissue loading may occur at even lower rates of administration.”
FDA on Aluminum in large and small volume parenterals used in total parenteral nutrition.
The FDA and AAP and others began investigating and then warning folks about aluminum in 1986. They weren’t worried about aluminum in vaccines though. They were concerned that newborns and younger premature infants might be getting too much aluminum if they were getting a lot of IV products with aluminum, especially if they weren’t able to eat on their own and were dependent on total parental nutrition for long periods of time.
So these were high risk infants who were potentially getting high doses of aluminum each and every day for weeks or months at a time. And somehow anti-vaccine folks equated this with other infants who were getting vaccines every few months, at least they did once they started to move away from worrying about thimerosal.
What to Know About Using a Vaccines Ingredient Calculator
Vaccine ingredient calculators are a propaganda tool that anti-vaccine folks use to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.
Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of bad ones too.
How to End the Epidemic of Bad Books About Autism
Why are there so many bad books about autism?
That’s easy.
JB Handley is the latest to write a book about vaccines and autism, moving the focus to aluminum, now that it has become obvious that removing thimerosal from vaccines didn’t affect autism rates.
Just about every anti-vaccine expert out there also thinks that they are an expert on autism. In fact, they think that they have all of the answers and can even help you cure and prevent autism.
That’s why there are books like:
The Autism Book: What Every Parent Needs to Know About Early Detection, Treatment, Recovery, and Prevention by Dr. Bob Sears
Preventing Autism: What You Can Do to Protect Your Children Before and After Birth by Dr. Jay Gordon
Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism by Jenny McCarthy
Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines – The Truth Behind a Tragedy by Andrew Wakefield
Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemicby Barbara Loe Fisher
The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill
What do all of these books miss?
“Autism, as I see it, steals the soul from a child…”
Dr. Jerry Kartzinel writing in the introduction to Jenny McCarthy’s first autism book Louder Than Words
“Doctors who first worked with children with regressive autism back in the early 1990s found that one of the biggest “wows” came from treating intestinal yeast overgrowth, and this benefit holds true today. Children whose diarrhea doesn’t go away with the GFCF diet usually show resolution with yeast medication.”
Bob Sears, MD on The Autism Book
From restrictive diets and antifungal drugs for yeast infections to bleach enemas and detox therapies, these books often push expensive, often unproven, sometimes disproven, and dangerous non-evidence basedbiomedical treatments and cures on hopeful parents of autistic kids.
Don’t help them by buying or promoting their books.
Instead, look for better books by folks who are really helping autistic kids and don’t think they are damaged, or books by someone who is actually autistic.
What to Know About the Epidemic of Bad Autism Books
There are a lot of good books out there with helpful information if you think that your child is autistic, has been recently diagnosed, or if you simply want to learn more about autism. It’s time to stop the epidemic of bad autism books.
If you are already on the fence about vaccines, there are probably some you want to avoid…
For many parents, that likely means skipping all of the vaccines with toxins, like antifreeze.
Which Vaccines Contain Antifreeze?
Do vaccines really contain antifreeze, the stuff we put in our cars?
“Too many too soon. When I was on this show before, I said we need an alternate schedule. This is too much. We need to get rid of the toxins, the mercury — which I am so tired of everyone saying it’s been removed. It has not been removed from the shots. We’ll get into that later. Aluminum, ether, antifreeze — these are toxic ingredients in shots that need to be removed.”
Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live
Jenny McCarthy warned folks about antifreeze in vaccines when she appeared on Larry King Live on April 2, 2008 to promote her book, Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism.
“We are treating vaccine injury and the kids are getting better.”
Besides the fact that vaccine ingredients aren’t toxic, the last remaining non-flu vaccines with the preservative thimerosal, a form of mercury, expired in 2003. And there have been plenty of thimerosal free flu vaccines available for kids and pregnant women since then.
Aluminum is used in many vaccines, but again, it is not toxic.
Ether? There is no ether in vaccines. Remember, ether, or diethyl ether was once used as a general anesthetic. At least it was until we developed anesthetics that didn’t blow up.
And antifreeze?
Why do so many anti-vaccine folks think that antifreeze, or ethylene glycol, is an ingredient in vaccines?
It isn’t. Not in any vaccine.
Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey went on a mission to Green Our Vaccines in 2008 and warn folks about toxins in vaccines, like antifreeze and ether.
Remember that toxic antifreeze, ethylene glycol, has a sweet taste, which helped contribute to it harming so many kids. You had a toxic substance that tasted good and which was sometimes stored inappropriately in the garage or kitchen cabinets.
Fortunately, ethylene glycol isn’t used as much as it used to be. Many people now use propylene glycol, which is considered to be a non-toxic antifreeze. Propylene glycol is not used in vaccines either.
Polyethylene glycol (PEG), which is also used in common laxatives, has been used to inactivate flu vaccines and was found in residual amounts in some of those flu vaccines.
And some vaccines do contain 2-phenoxyethanol. Another name for 2-phenoxyethanol is ethylene glycol monophenyl ether. A similar sounding name doesn’t make it the same substance though.
2-phenoxyethanol is used as a stabilizer or preservative in some vaccines.
But neither polyethylene glycol nor 2-phenoxyethanol are antifreeze and neither are toxic at doses present in vaccines.
What To Know About Vaccines with Antifreeze
Vaccines are safe and necessary and do not contain antifreeze or any other ingredients that are toxic.
