Those two quotes are in there.
My bad. I missed them.
Thimerosal is still contained in some of the flu vaccines routinely given to children since 2004.
One. Flu vaccines are not mandatory.
Two. There are thimerosal free flu vaccines.
If that is true, then the fact that the autistic children excreted more mercury than the normal children should show that they had more in their bodies.
But the Holmes study shows autistic children have MUCH less mercury.
How do you reconcile that fact with your contention that autistic children have a higher body burden?
Your links from your previous post don't go directly to what you quoted.
What links? My last post contained no links.
I would wonder where they are storing the mercury in their body. The hair samples are supposedly a snapshot of the circulating blood. If the mercury isn't there, then where else does mercury reside? Organs, brain cells, tissue,... Have those tests been done?
quackwatch.org writes:
A study published in 2002 of infants who were 6 months of age or younger compared the levels of mercury in the blood, hair, urine, and stool of 40 who received vaccines containing thimerosal and 20 who received vaccines without thimerosal. The study found:
* Mercury levels in blood and urine were low in all infants studied and in many cases too small to measure.
There was no observed dose-dependent relationship between the level of thimerosal received through vaccination and the level of mercury in the body.* Mercury levels in blood did not exceed, at any time, the blood levels that correspond to Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for exposure.
* Mercury levels in the stool of infants receiving vaccines containing thimerosal were relatively high compared to mercury levels in the stool of infants who were not exposed to thimerosal, providing evidence that mercury from
thimerosal is eliminated in the stool of infants.
http://www.quackwatch.org/...hPromotion/immu/thimerosal.html
Mercury isn't stored in the body. It is excreted in urine and feces.
Which means you have a problem.
Because mercury is excreted,
at best, it can be measured "as a snapshot", so lots of different environmental factors come into play.
Mercury is omnipresent: air, food, water.
The mercury levels that you cite are all over the place ...
More mercury in baby teeth than the norms.
Less in the hair than the norms.
Through chelation excreted more than the norms.
Why would there be more in the teeth and less in the hair?
This should alert you to the fact that it isn't primarily from the vaccines. It's environmental.
The "mother data" is worthless, btw. It carries no weight.
Another chelation study.
24-hour provoked urine excretion test for heavy metals in children with autism and typically developing controls, a pilot study.
Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2007 Jun-Aug;45(5):476-81.
Fifteen autistic children and four typically developing children completed the study. Three autistic subjects excreted one metal in greater quantity during the provoked excretion than baseline. Two of these were very close to the limit of detection. In the third case, the provoked excretion of mercury was between the upper limit of normal and lower limit of the potentially toxic reference range. Fish was removed from this child's diet for greater than one month, and the provoked excretion test repeated. The repeat excretion of mercury was within the normal range. CONCLUSION: In the absence a proven novel mode of heavy metal toxicity, the proportion of autistic participants in this study whose DMSA provoked excretion results demonstrate an excess chelatable body burden of As, Cd, Pb, or Hg is zero. The confidence interval for this proportion is 0-22%.
Since the children were given something to cause them to excrete mercury, I don't see how that negates the possibility that autistic children have difficulty excreting mercury.
Excretion is excretion, PD.
Whether it's natural (thru urine and feces) or artificial (thru chelation).
If autistic children had a decreased ability to excrete mercury thru urine/feces, it wouldn't work with chelation either.
And remember. Mercury is not stored in the body.
Some mercury is fat soluble so it is able to cross the blood-brain barrier and the placenta.
Methyl mercury (found in fish) crosses the placenta.
Not ethyl mercury (aka thimerosal).
The page you’re looking for isn’t available | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
What is the purpose of the studies of thimerosal and methyl mercury exposure in infant monkeys?
NIAID supported studies in infant and adolescent monkeys to compare the distribution, metabolism, and clearance of mercury after exposure to thimerosal and methyl mercury. Infant monkeys were exposed to either thimerosal or methyl mercury on a weekly basis. Blood levels of mercury were determined for each animal after each exposure. The development and behavior of the monkeys was also monitored. After the fourth dose, animal tissues were analyzed to determine levels of mercury in target tissues, such as brain and kidney. These studies will provide information to help determine whether or not the guidelines for methyl mercury are also appropriate for thimerosal.
Are the results available for the completed studies of thimerosal and methyl mercury exposure in infant monkeys?
Currently the investigators of this study are completing their analyses of the data obtained from this study. Preliminary results indicate
* Mercury, in the form of methyl mercury (oral ingestion) and thimerosal (intramuscular injection with vaccines) were both readily absorbed and distributed into blood and brain.
* Total (organic plus inorganic) mercury was cleared from both blood and brain faster after thimerosal exposure than after methyl mercury exposure.
* Levels of total mercury measured in blood and in brain were lower after thimerosal exposure than after methyl mercury exposure.
* The proportion of brain mercury that was inorganic was higher in thimerosal-exposed animals compared with methyl mercury.
* The absolute amount of inorganic mercury was higher in thimerosal-exposed animals compared with methyl mercury.
* During weekly doses of methyl mercury, total mercury in blood continued to accumulate, while during weekly doses of thimerosal, there was little accumulation of total mercury in blood.
Does NIAID plan to support any further research to assess mercury levels in infants who received vaccines containing thimerosal?
Yes. NIAID supported a follow-up study with a larger number of infants. The University of Rochester is collaborating with the Children's Hospital of Buenos Aires in Argentina to conduct this study. The Argentina clinicians measured mercury in blood and other samples from infants receiving routine vaccinations with thimerosal.
NIAID is also conducting an additional study in Argentina that focuses on enrollment of premature (32 to 37 weeks gestational age) and low birth weight (2,000 to less than 3,000 grams) infants. Enrollment for this study is complete. Although some thimerosal-containing vaccines still are given to children in Argentina, most vaccines now given to children in the United States are either thimerosal-free or contain markedly reduced amounts of thimerosal.
What does NIAID hope to learn from the follow-up studies of thimerosal and vaccines in infants?
The goals of these studies are to assess the levels of mercury in the blood and other samples from infants receiving thimerosal-containing vaccines as part of their routine immunization schedule and to obtain more samples closer to the time of vaccination.
Preliminary results from the first portion of the study including 216 infants in Argentina confirmed findings of the first study done at University of Rochester.
* Blood mercury levels do not show accumulation between vaccinations in children; the levels drop to pre-vaccination levels within 30 days.
* Mercury excretion in stools follows vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccines.
From what I can tell of the studies we've looked at, the autistic kids seem to have more mercury in their bodies than the normal kids.
Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism |The National Academies Press
Although no firm rules establish the amount of evidence or the quality of the evidence required to support a specific category of causality conclusion, the committee uses standard epidemiologic criteria to guide its decisions. The most definitive category is “establishes causality,” which is reserved for those relation- ships in which the causal link is unequivocal, as with the oral polio vaccine and vaccine-associated paralytic polio or with anaphylactic reactions to vaccine administration (IOM 1991, 1994a). The next category, “favors acceptance” of a causal relationship, reflects evidence that is strong and generally convincing, although not firm enough to be described as unequivocal or established. “Favors rejection” is the strongest category in the negative direction. (The category of “establishes no causal relationship” is not used because it is virtually impossible to prove the absence of a relationship with the same surety that is possible in establishing the presence of one.)
The sources of evidence considered by the committee in its assessment of causality include epidemiologic and clinical studies directly addressing the question at hand. That is, the data are specifically related to the effects of the vaccine(s) under review and the adverse health outcome(s) under review”in this report, the MMR vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and the risk of autism.
Epidemiologic studies carry the most weight in a causality assessment. These studies measure health-related exposures and outcomes in a defined set of subjects and use that information to make inferences about the nature and strength of associations between such exposures and outcomes in the overall population from which the study sample was drawn. Epidemiologic studies can be categorized as observational or experimental (clinical trial), and as uncontrolled or controlled. Among these categories, experimental studies generally have the advantage of random assignment to exposures and are therefore the most influential in assessing causality.
Published reports carry the most weight in the committee’s assessment because their methods and findings are laid out in enough detail to be assessed. Furthermore, those published works that undergo a rigorous peer review are subject to comment and criticism by the entire scientific community.
In response to public concern about the safety of the MMR vaccine following the 1998 study, a number of researchers initiated epidemiological studies to examine the association between ASD and the MMR vaccine. In fact, researchers have published six new epidemiological studies (DeStefano et al., 2004; DeWilde et al., 2001; Madsen et al., 2002; Makela et al., 2002; Takahashi et al., 2003; Taylor et al., 2002), and have conducted research on a number of potential biologic mechanisms.
Controlled Observational Studies
Denmark.
Hviid and colleagues (2003) compared rates of autism and other ASDs in Danish children who received TCV with those who received thimerosal-free vaccine.
A total of 467,450 children were born in Denmark between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 1996.9 Of this total, 446,695 children received at least one dose of whole-cell pertussis vaccine. For the cohort receiving thimerosal-free vaccinations, there were 1,660,159 person-years at risk. For the cohort receiving TCVs, there were 1,220,006 person-years at risk. Altogether, 407 children were diagnosed with autism, of which 303 children had received thimerosal-free vaccine and 104 received TCV. Some 751 children were diagnosed with other ASDs, of which 430 children received thimerosal-free vaccine and 321 children received TCV. The adjusted rate ratio for autism (adjusting for age, calendar period, child’s sex, child’s place of birth, birth weight, 5-minute Apgar score, gestational age, mother’s age at birth of child, and mother’s country of birth) was 0.85 (95% CI, 0.60-1.20). The adjusted rate ratio for other autistic spectrum disorders was 1.12 (95% CI, 0.88-1.43). There was no increase in the rate ratio for autism per 25 g of EtHg (0.98 [95% CI, 0.90-1.06] or in the rate ratio for other ASDs per 25 g of EtHg (1.03 [95% CI, 0.98-1.09]).
Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD).
Verstraeten and colleagues (2003) conducted a retrospective cohort study to examine whether certain NDDs, including autism, are related to exposure to TCVs.
In Phase I, the study population included children born between January 1992 and December 1998 who were enrolled continuously during their first year of life in either HMO A or HMO B and who received at least two polio vaccinations by 1 year of age.
Of the 23,241 infants born in HMO A and 229,285 infants born in HMO B between 1992 and 1998, 13,337 from HMO A and 110,833 from HMOB met the eligibility criteria for inclusion in the analyses.
For HMO A, there were 21 reports of autism, with a median age of 49 months. For HMO B, a total of 202 children (median age was 44 months) were diagnosed with autism.
Because no significant associations were found between autism and exposure to TCVs in Phase I, no further analysis was conducted of the possible relationship between autism and TCV in Phase II of the study.
Overall, the study’s findings showed no association between TCVs and autism.
Ecological Studies
Denmark.
Madsen and colleagues (2003) conducted an ecological study comparing the trend in autism incidence in Denmark to the use of TCVs in Denmark from 1971 to 2000.
Autism cases were obtained from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register, a national register that includes all psychiatric admissions.
A total of 956 children were diagnosed with autism. Overall, the incidence rate remained level until 1990, then increased and peaked in 1999, and subsequently decreased.
Because autism rates continued to increase after the elimination of TCVs in Denmark, the authors concluded that the results of the study did not support a correlation between thimerosal in vaccines and autism incidence.
Denmark.
Stehr-Green and colleagues (2003) also conducted an ecological study that compared the number of autism cases per year to the use of TCV in Denmark and Sweden.
The number of autism cases was obtained from the Danish National Centre for Register-Based Research, which includes both outpatient and inpatient information on children diagnosed with neurological disorders between 1983 and 2000.
The number of autism cases among 2- to 10-year-olds remained level before 1990, at less than 10 cases per year, but the number of cases peaked in 1999 to 181. By the end of 2000, there was an estimated autism prevalence of 8.1 cases per 10,000 persons.
In contrast, the proportion of children receiving 125 g of ethylmercury from three doses of whole-cell pertussis vaccine by 10 months of age remained level between 1970 and 1991, but decreased from 1991 to 1993 as thimerosal was eliminated from whole-cell pertussis vaccines.
Based on these results, the authors concluded that the results did not support the hypothesis that TCVs are responsible for increasing autism rates.
Sweden.
Autism information was collected on the national level. Cases were inpatients diagnosed between 2 and 10 years of age and diag- nosed with either infantile autism or atypical autism (ICD-9 299.x from 1987 to 1997; ICD-10 F84.x from 1997 to 1999).
The authors concluded that the study did not demonstrate a correlation between thimerosal in vaccines and autism rates because autism rates in Sweden continued to increase after the elimination of thimerosal from vaccines.
I think that's enough for now, don't you?
The evidence is overwhelming, PD.
There is no causality.
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