New CDC Research Debunks Agency’s Assertion That Mercury in Vaccines Is Safe

Print

By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) once again advised pregnant women to curb consumption of fish in order to limit fetal exposures to neurotoxic mercury. This warning raises the baffling query: How can the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) justify its recommendations that pregnant women get flu shots which are laden with far more mercury than what’s found in a can of tuna?

The CDC has long answered that nettlesome question with the controversial claim that ethylmercury in vaccines is not toxic to humans. Now, two CDC scientists have published research decisively debunking that assertion. As it turns out, there is no “good mercury” and “bad mercury.” Both forms are equally poisonous to the brain.

The CDC study, Alkyl Mercury-Induced Toxicity: Multiple Mechanisms of Action, appeared last month in the journal, Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. The 45-page meta-review of relevant science examines the various ways that mercury harms the human body. Its authors, John F. Risher, PhD, and Pamela Tucker, MD, are researchers in the CDC’s Division of Toxicology and Human Health Sciences, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

“This scientific paper is the one of most important pieces of research to come out of the CDC in a decade,” Paul Thomas, M.D., a Dartmouth-trained pediatrician who has been practicing medicine for 30 years, said. “It confirms what so many already suspected: that public health officials have been making a terrible mistake in recommending that we expose babies and pregnant women to this neurotoxin. I regret to say that I gave these shots to children. The CDC led us all to believe that it was perfectly safe.”

Among the findings of the CDC’s new study:

Methylmercury, the highly-regulated neurotoxin found in fish, and ethylmercury (found in medical products, including influenza and tetanus vaccines, ear drops and nasal sprays) are similarly toxic to humans. Methylmercury and ethylmercury share common chemical properties, and both significantly disrupt central nervous system development and function.

Thimerosal is extremely toxic at very low exposures and is more damaging than methylmercury in some studies. For example, ethylmercury is even more destructive to the mitochondria in cells than methylmercury.

The ethylmercury in thimerosal does not leave the body quickly as the CDC once claimed, but is metabolized into highly neurotoxic forms.

Despite this stark rejection of a decade of CDC safety assurances, CDC’s public relations machine is still bucking the new scientific consensus; the article concludes with a telling disclaimer in tiny font:

“The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.”

CDC’s website continues to feature now discredited safety assurances.

“Baldly dismissing the danger to humans from ethylmercury, has long been a reckless gambit,” said J.B. Handley, a Portland, Oregon, businessman who believes that his son received debilitating injuries from a mercury vaccine. “With this study, by its own scientists, the CDC has now edged into the realm of criminal endangerment.”

Handley, the founder of Generation Rescue, a vaccine safety advocacy group, condemns the CDC for misleading the medical establishment.

“The CDC knows that pediatricians and physicians rely on its public pronouncements when they make treatment decisions for their patients; how can we escape the conclusion that the agency is knowingly causing the poisoning of tens of millions of American children,” Handley stated.

For example, CDC’s webpage still parrots the now discredited industry canard that:

“Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, which is cleared from the human body more quickly than methylmercury, and is therefore less likely to cause any harm.”

However, the new study makes the opposite conclusion:

“Thimerosal is quickly metabolized in vivo (in a living organism) due to its reactions with protein and non-protein thiols … so the effects of thimerosal reported in numerous articles are very likely the result of exposure to the metabolite ethylmercury.”

Ignoring the agency’s own scientific evidence, the CDC’s webpage stubbornly insists that the “two types of mercury to which people may be exposed—methylmercury and ethylmercury—are very different.” The new CDC study directly contradicts this assertion, “There are many commonalities/similarities in the mechanisms of toxic action of methylmercury and ethylmercury …”

The study meticulously details identical toxicity pathways shared by both forms of mercury:

Both ethyl and methyl mercury cause DNA damage or impair DNA synthesis (Burke et al. 2006; Sharpe et al. 2012; Wu et al. 2008).

Both cause oxidative stress/creation of reactive oxygen species (Dreiem and Seegal 2007; Garg and Chang 2006; Myhre et al. 2003; Sharpe et al. 2012; Yin et al. 2007).

Both decrease glutathione activity, thus providing less protection from the oxidative stress caused by MeHg and EtHg (Carocci et al. 2014; Ndountse and Chan (2008); Choi et al. 1996; Franco et al. 2006; Mori et al. 2007; Muller et al. 2001; Ndountse and Chan 2008; Wu et al. 2008).

Both cause effects on cell division by damaging the spindle apparatus during mitosis (Burke et al. 2006; Castoldi et al. 2000; Gribble et al. 2005; Kim et al. 2007; Ou et al. 1999b; Machaty et al. 1999; Rodier et al. 1984).

Both MeHg and EtHg bind to the amino acid cysteine (Clarkson 1995; Wu et al. 2008).

Both MeHg and EtHg strongly inhibit the reacylation of arachidonic acid, thus inhibiting the reincorporation of this fatty acid into membrane phospholipids (Shanker et al. 2002; Verity et al. 1994; Zarini et al. 2006).

Both cause an increase in NOS, causing an overproduction of NO (Chen et al. 2003; Chuu et al. 2001; Shinyashiki et al. 1998).

Both disrupt glutamate homeostasis (Farina et al. 2003a, b; Manfroi et al. 2004; Mutkus et al. 2005; Yin et al. 2007).

Both alter intracellular calcium homeostasis (Elferink 1999; Hare et al. 1993;Kang et al. 2006; Limke et al. 2004b; Machaty et al. 1999; Marty and Atchison1997; Minnema et al. 1987; Peng et al. 2002; Sayers et al. 1993; Sirois and Atchison, 2000; Szalai et al. 1999; Tornquist et al. 1999; Zarini et al. 2006).

Both cause effects on receptor binding/neurotransmitter release involving one or more transmitters (Basu et al. 2008; Coccini et al. 2000; Cooper et al. 2003; Fonfria et al. 2001; Ida-Eto et al. 2011; Ndountse and Chan 2008; Yuan and Atchison 2003).

“This study is a nuclear bomb detonating over the CDC,” Boyd Haley, chairman emeritus of the University of Kentucky Chemistry Department, said. “It should be getting international, front page headlines.”

As one of the world’s leading authorities on mercury toxicity, Haley observed, “It’s a momentous rejection of a widely held medical orthodoxy dictating policy changes even more significant than the medical establishment’s reversals on thalidomide, calomel tooth powder, x-rays during pregnancy, or lead exposure to children. In each of these cases, thousands of children were injured or killed before an entrenched medical establishment was finally willing to abandon treatments that were unquestionably causing great harm.”

Ethylmercury vs. Methylmercury in Mass Poisonings

The revolutionary conclusions of the new CDC study actually reflect decades of work by mainstream independent scientists outside the agency. A rich scientific literature that emerged from accidental poisoning events has consistently documented—despite CDC’s official claims—that ethylmercury and methylmercury are equally toxic. In addition to the well-known Minamata and Iraq methylmercury-poisoning, many other large-scale food poisonings have occurred involving ethylmercury fungicides in Iraq in 1956 and 1960, in Pakistan in 1961, and in Russia in the 1960s as well. These episodes resulted in maladies ranging from basic tissue injury to heart and brain injury and even death.

Derban reported in 1974 on 144 cases of mercury poisoning from the use of ethylmercury fungicide on a southern Ghana state farm. Multiple other studies based on these poisoning events showed, as stated in a 1977 study by David Fagan, that the long-term neurological consequences produced by the “ingestion of either methyl or ethyl mercury-based fungicides are indistinguishable.”

A 1979 case report concerned a fifteen-year-old boy who had eaten the meat of a pig that had fed on ethylmercury fungicide−treated seed. Documented effects on the boy included debilitating brain damage and loss of coordination, with high toxicity for the brain as well as the spinal motor neurons, peripheral nerves, skeletal muscles, and heart muscle. The boy died about one month after becoming ill.

Ethylmercury’s use as pesticide was eventually banned in many countries, including the United States and those in the European Union, and for good reason: A 1977 study gauged ethylmercury chloride’s relative toxicity as a pesticide as the fifth most toxic of thirty substances tested, with a score of 12.7. That grade score almost matched that of DDT, at 14.2, an infamous pesticide banned in 1972.

In 1977 Fagan reported on 13 children suffering from exomphalos (a rare abdominal wall defect that allows the intestines to protrude from the abdomen) treated with gauze soaked applications of thimerosal to prevent infection. Of thirteen patients treated with thimerosal, 9 died. The authors tested mercury levels in the tissue of 8 of the children who died. They reported that “blood and tissue levels of mercury well above the threshold at which damage occurs in all other age groups, it is extremely unlikely that these infants escape neurological damage, which may be subtle.” One infant exposed to thimerosal and survived was later reported as being “restless, easily distracted, and not interested in schoolwork.” The authors recommended that “organic mercurial antiseptics should be heavily restricted or withdrawn from hospital use, as the fact that mercury readily penetrates intact membranes and is highly toxic seems to have been forgotten.”

Why Does the US EPA only Provide Guidelines for Exposure to Methylmercury and not Ethylmercury?

In 1995, based on research from outbreaks of poisonings and other research from the Faroe Islands and the Seychelles, the EPA established a safe “reference dose” for methyl mercury (RfD). An RfD is defined as “an estimate of a daily exposure to the human population (including sensitive subgroups) that is likely to be without an appreciable risk of adverse effects when experienced during a lifetime,” according to the EPA.

The EPA adopted for methylmercury an RfD of 0.1 microgram of mercury per kilogram of the individual’s body weight per day. Other health agencies set their own recommended limits for methylmercury exposure, including the FDA in 1979, the World Health Organization in 1989 and the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in 1999. The highest of these limits was the WHO’s, at 0.47 microgram per kilogram of body weight per day.

In 1999 the US Congress directed the EPA to contract with the nonprofit, independent National Research Council (NRC) to prepare recommendations on an updated and appropriate RfD. The EPA commissioned the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the NRC to carry out a study on toxicological effects of methylmercury compounds. The goal was to review the process used by the EPA to establish national safety standards. The committee evaluated the literature, which demonstrated methylmercury compounds’ high toxicity to brain tissue, even at minute levels. The NAS ultimately agreed with the EPA ‘s originally conceived RfD, which remains in place today. An RfD has never been established for ethylmercury.

The CDC has crossed ethical and perhaps even legal boundaries by purposefully blocking efforts by the National Institute of Environmental Health Science’s (NIEHS) National Toxicology Program (NTP) to test ethylmercury for toxicity – a process that would have lead to maximum exposure guidelines. In 2000, the FDA nominated thimerosal to the NTP for toxicity testing. However, CDC officials derailed the review telling the NTP committee that “There is a great concern within CDC about continued attacks from anti-vaccine groups questioning the integrity of CDC activities and recommendations regarding the use of thimerosal-containing vaccine.” In response to CDC pressure, the NTP put thimerosal on permanent deferred status. Thimerosal has, therefore, never been tested for safety or toxicity.

Ethyl Mercury Exposure Levels Based on Methyl Mercury Guidelines

A single Thimerosal-preserved flu vaccine contains 25 micrograms of ethylmercury. If the EPA RfD for ingested methylmercury is applied to this injected ethylmercury figure, an individual would have to weigh more than 250 kilograms (551 pounds) for the 25 microgram exposure to be considered safe. Back in the 1990s, a two-month-old child could have received 62.5 micrograms from three vaccines in a single doctor’s visit. Assuming the child weighed about 5 kilograms (11 pounds), he or she would have received 125 times the EPA RfD for methylmercury.

At least one study has suggested that the methylmercury RfD should be set lower for infants and also for fetuses. In 1995, Steven Gilbert and Kimberly Grant-Webster wrote: “Available information on the developmental neurotoxic effects of MeHg [methylmercury], particularly the neurobehavioral effects, indicates that the fetus and infant are more sensitive to adverse effects of MeHg. It is therefore recommended that pregnant women and women of childbearing age be strongly advised to limit their exposure to potential sources of MeHg. Based on results from human and animal studies on the developmental neurotoxic effects of methylmercury, the accepted reference dose should be lowered to 0.025 to 0.06 MeHg [microgram]/kg/day.”

What might this mean for a fetus today? We’ll take the low end of that estimate and apply it to an average 1.15-kilogram (2.54-pound) fetus at the start of the third trimester. A fetus exposed to 25 micrograms of mercury via a Thimerosal-preserved flu shot administered to its pregnant mother could be subject to 870 times the proposed lower reference dose.