http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/198/nation/Fears_raised_over_preservative_in_vaccines+.shtml
Lyn Redwood, a registered nurse, thought she was doing the
right thing when she took her healthy son, Will, to get vaccinated for measles
and other childhood diseases. But soon afterward, she saw a change in her
1-year-old.
“He lost speech,” the Atlanta resident said of her son,
now 7. “He lost” the ability to make “eye contact.”
It was only after her son was diagnosed with a form of
autism that she found a Food and Drug Administration study warning that a
preservative used in some vaccines may have exposed children to levels of
mercury higher than recommended under federal guidelines. A check of her son’s
vaccine records confirmed her fears: The vaccines contained the toxic
ingredient, called thimerosal.
“My son had 125 times the allowable exposure in one day,”
she said, referring to the maximum daily dosage for mercury exposure
recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Redwood was one of more than a dozen parents of autistic
children from around the country who yesterday urged a committee from the
Institute of Medicine to oppose the use of any mercury compound as a
preservative in vaccines. The panel, a branch of the National Academy of
Science, gathered at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge to hear scientific
testimony on the link between mercury in vaccines and neurological problems in
children.
Dangerous side effects from children’s vaccines have long
been a sensitive subject for public health officials - and a parent’s
nightmare. While vaccinations are responsible for the virtual elimination of
such crippling diseases as polio, in rare cases vaccinations themselves can
cause severe, even life-threatening reactions.
The form of mercury in vaccines and other medical
products, thimerosal, has been used as a preservative since the 1930s. Though
mercury has long been known to be a neurotoxin, vaccine makers and federal
officials alike argued that it was harmless in the small doses found in
vaccines.
However, mercury in vaccines has been an issue of growing
debate in recent years as anecdotal evidence increasingly shows that some
children develop autism after receiving vaccinations for mumps, measles, and
rubella as well as hepatitis B. Though its causes are not well understood, the
effects of autism are quite clear: Sufferers have great difficulty in social interactions
and some can’t even speak.
As a result, children’s vaccines became part of the
broader controversy over mercury pollution in the environment. Because mercury
is so toxic, governments have pledged to virtually eliminate mercury emissions
from power plants and other sources, and states have warned children and young
women to limit consumption of freshwater fish because of their mercury content.
Against that backdrop, the US Public Health Service has
recommended that the use of thimerosal should be “reduced or eliminated from
vaccines as soon as possible to minimize the exposure of infants and young
children to mercury,” said Dr. Bernard Schwetz, the agency’s acting principal
deputy commissioner.
In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and the
National Institutes of Health have formed a scientific committee to study the
health effects of thimerosal more closely and recommend what more should be
done to limit exposure.
“Parents research the best car seat to put their children
in,” said Redwood, president of the Coalition for Sensible Action for Ending Mercury-Induced
Neurological Disorders. “I want parents to know that they have to research
vaccines, too.”
Over the past year, the FDA has approved several
thimerosal-free forms of childhood vaccines, including a hepatitis B vaccine.
In March, for example, the FDA approved a low-thimerosal version of Tripedia, a
vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus toxoids, and acellular pertussis.
“Now, all routinely recommended pediatric vaccines will be
available as either completely thimerosal-free or without any significant
amounts of thimerosal,” Schwetz said at the time.
But many other products contain the preservative -
including children’s nasal drops, ear drops, and flu vaccines, said Dr. Jane M.
El-Dahr, head of the Pediatric Allergy, Immunity, and Rheumatology Section at
Tulane University Health Science Center, who was a speaker at yesterday’s
hearing.
“These products are sitting on the shelves” in drugstores,
El-Dahr said.
Sallie Bernard, executive director of Safe Minds, said
that although the FDA moved in the right direction by phasing out thimerosal in
children’s vaccines, parents still need to beware, because it will take up to a
year for current stocks of vaccines with mercury to be used up.
She also said that a strong statement from the committee
can have far-reaching application. “It’s still in tetanus shots,” she said of thimerosal.
“It’s still in many vaccines given to the elderly, to children,” groups that
are at greatest risk of developing neurological problems.
Most of the doctors and scientists who spoke at the
hearing presented evidence that showed at least a correlation between vaccines
containing mercury and the incidence of neurological disease. But since the
sample of autistic children in most of the studies was so small, and because of
a general lack of data, most specialists recommended more tests to conclusively
determine a scientific link.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 7/17/2001.
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