Time to banish this threat to our children

IN THE United States, parents can choose which vaccine to give their child. The pharmaceutical companies advertise on television, competing on safety and quality. The result is the expert parent, well-briefed on the products on the market.

In Britain, we take what we are given. The man in Whitehall orders it and infants are summoned to receive it - without their parents being told which brand has been chosen or what’s in the mix. Or whether it contains a proven neurotoxin.

This is why mercury is still being injected into British infants, four years after the order was given to remove it in the US. The Scotsman today lists the child vaccines which contain thimerosal, a preservative 50 per cent composed of ethyl mercury. You will not find this in any US vaccines. Parents would not buy it. But in Britain, it is in the mainstay child vaccine DTwP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis), which parents cannot avoid.

There are about 50 micrograms of thimerosal in every dose of this injection, administered to British infants who take DTwP aged eight, 12 and 14 weeks. By this tender age, they will have been injected with about 75 micrograms of ethyl mercury.

If this were so bad, you may think, wouldn’t there be outcry? The answer can be found by typing "thimerosal" and "litigation" into any internet search. Where people know about it, it is seen as a scandal.

It does not take an Alexander Fleming to realise that injecting it into children is not a good idea.

The upside is that thimerosal saves money by making the small vaccine vials last longer. The downside is that it has, to quote the United States Institute of Medicine, a "biologically plausible" link to autism.

No parent, given the choice, would subject their child to such a risk. If the non-mercury vaccine costs a little bit extra, said American parents, so be it. And so the invisible hand of the market swept mercury from American vaccines.

After getting angry, the US parents are now getting even. Some 5,000 parents of autistic children are suing Eli Lilly, a thimerosal manufacturer, seeking to prove that the mercury particles injected into their child zapped brain cells and scrambled thinking.

Back in Britain, we are still in the dark ages. No choice means no information means no education. We have bought so much of the mercury-containing vaccines. because someone, somewhere in Whitehall, ticked the wrong box.

This is a typical defect of a sprawling monopoly like the NHS. Without parent power, such mistakes can be made. Alan Milburn is trying to end this culture in England, replacing the NHS monopoly with choice - to eliminate gaffes like this.

Five years ago, Scots would moan - then resign themselves to waiting for London to act. But now we have a Scottish Parliament, capable of banning mercury in medicine tomorrow.

London may take months, perhaps years, to wake up to the threat and switch to mercury-free vaccines. There is no reason for Scots children to be put at risk one day longer.