Recently posted to Facebook is an article “John Hopkins Scientist Reveals Shocking Report on Flu Vaccine”. I want to point out that there are many news outlets that are only in the business of getting people to click on their page for the ad counters, and therefore they receive some sort of financial benefit.
Before I get into the meat and potatoes of what I want to say I want this fact to be known; Influenza and it’s complications account for up to 40,000 deaths annually in the United States. That figure works out to 109.5 people every day if extrapolated out over a year.
Also to be noted is that the article being cited in the webpage that was linked on Facebook, is based on a submission to the 13 May 2013 issue of the British Medical Journal, in the News & Views section, this is their opinion section of the medical journal. Often when people hear an item is in a Medical Journal they assume it is a peer-reviewed study. This was not a peer-reviewed article.
Today I am only going to address one of the claims in this “Shocking Report on Flu Vaccine”. One of the claims in the opinion piece is that there is a dangerous amount of mercury in the vaccine.
Thimerosal
Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound. Since the 1930s, it has been widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes.
Over the past several years, because of an increasing awareness of the theoretical potential for neurotoxicity of even low levels of organomercurials and because of the increased number of Thimerosal containing vaccines that had been added to the infant immunization schedule, concerns about the use of Thimerosal in vaccines and other products have been raised.
Because of these concerns, the Food and Drug Administration has worked with vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate Thimerosal from vaccines.
Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger.
If you are concerned about the amount of Thimerosal in the flu vaccine, you should ask for the single–dose presentation, versus the multi-dose presentation. Let me be VERY clear about this, there is NO mercury in single dose flu vaccine. Don’t believe me? Here is a link to the FDA’s website,
ONE Tuna Sandwich Has More Mercury
The multi-dose vaccines do have a small amount of mercury, and by small I mean 12.5 – 24.5 micrograms of ethylmercury in each dose of vaccine. You might be thinking that is a lot of mercury, and compared to the single dose vaccine, which has none, you would be right.
However, the multi-dose vaccine has less mercury that an average 2 oz. serving of chunk light tuna which contains on average 36 micrograms of methylmercury.
Ultimately there is more mercury in a tuna sandwich than ANY vaccine. You could also include swordfish, tile fish, salmon, and other large ocean fish! Next time I will address effectiveness and why it is important to create herd immunity.