Autism/Thimerosal Timeline 2003

Excerpt from Autism Facts.com

2003
To date, very little epidemiological or clinical research has been done in the United States on the neurological effects of Thimerosal, and particularly its ethylmercury component.

Federal officials have still never publicly acknowledged that most children received doses of ethylmercury that exceeded the FDA's less-restrictive limits as well as EPA's safety limits on methylmercury exposure.

The National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Division of Safety has initiated a program to make the NIH mercury-free. According to the Division's own web site:

• "Elemental (metallic) mercury and its compounds are toxic and exposure to excessive levels can permanently damage or fatally injure the brain and kidneys. Elemental mercury can also be absorbed through the skin and cause allergic reactions. Ingestion of inorganic mercury compounds can cause severe renal and gastrointestinal toxicity. Organic compounds of mercury such as methylmercury are considered the most toxic forms of the element. Exposures to very small amounts of these compounds can result in devastating neurological damage and death.
• For fetuses, infants, and children, the primary health effects of mercury are on neurological development. Even low levels of mercury exposure, such as result form a mother's consumption of methylmercury in dietary sources, can adversely affect the brain and nervous system. Impacts on memory, attention, language and other skills have been found in children exposed to moderate levels in the womb.
• The campaign for a Mercury Free at the NIH seeks to eliminate, as far as possible, the use of mercury in NIH facilities; to encourage the use of safer alternatives in biomedical research; to increases general awareness of mercury hazards; and to prevent mercury pollution."
• The NIH Hatters Pledge:
• I will:
• Improve my awareness of mercury hazards and how to reduce them.
• Replace mercury thermometers and other mercury-containing items with non- or low-mercury alternatives if suitable alternatives are available.
• Dispose of mercury wastes following NIH procedures.
• Report spills of mercury
• On the NIH campus, call the Fire Department (911) who are the NIH hazardous material (HAZMAT) emergency responder.
• Off campus, call the local fire department or facility's hazardous material (HAZMAT) emergency responder.
• Have areas that might have been contaminated by mercury surveyed and decontaminated, if necessary.

The 2003 Physician's Desk Reference shows that there were still 3 childhood vaccines with full doses of Thimerosal. They were:

• DTaP by Aventis Pasteur containing 25 mcgs. per shot;
• Hib by Wyeth containing 25 mcgs per shot;
• Hep B by Merck containing 12.5 mcgs per shot.

Holmes, Blaxill and Haley reported in "Reduced Levels of Mercury in First Baby Haircuts of Autistic Children" that it seemed that autistic infants were significantly less able to detoxify and excrete the mercury from their bodies.
   
First baby haircuts were obtained from 94 children diagnosed with autism and 45 age and gender matched controls. Information on diet, dental amalgam fillings, vaccine history, RhoD immunoglobulin administration, and autism symptoms severity was collected through a maternal survey questionnaire and clinical observation.
   
Average mercury levels in hair samples from the autistic group of children were 0.47 ppm versus 3.63 ppm in the control group.
   
The mothers of the autistic children had significantly higher levels of mercury exposure through RhoD immunoglobulin injections and amalgam fillings than the mothers of the children in the control groups.
   
Within the autistic group, the mercury levels in their hair samples varied significantly across the mildly, moderately, and severely affected subgroups of children with mean subgroup levels of 0.79, 0.46, and 0.21 ppm.
   
The infants in the control groups had mercury levels that matched the levels expected from their exposures to mercury-containing materials including vaccines.

David S. Baskin, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery and Anesthesiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Texas published his findings of Thimerosal's toxicity in "Toxicological Sciences."
   
He stated:

• "We found that thimerosal in micromolar concentrations rapidly decreased cellular viability."

Johanna Qvarnstrom from the Department of Chemistry, Umea University in Sweden, published an article titled, "Determination of Methylmercury, Ethylmercury, and Inorganic Mercury in Mouse Tissues, Following Administration of Thimerosal, by Species-Specific Isotope Dilution GC-Inductively Coupled Plasma-MS." They analyzed the distribution of Thimerosal into the tissues of mice to determine the distribution of mercury species transformed from standard ethylmercury in the Thimerosal. They stated:

• "...thimerosal is rapidly taken up in organs as (ethylmercury) after oral treatment...In general, (ethylmercury) is considered to be converted to (inorganic mercury) more rapidly than (methylmercury)."

   
One reason, according to the authors, is that the ethylmercury carbon bond is less stable than that of methylmercury. Thimerosal damages DNA.

Dr. Sanfeliu published another study in "Neurotoxicology" titled, "Neurotoxicity of Organomercurial Compounds." They found that organic mercury has a high affinity for the thiol (-SH) group on glutathione, a tripeptide composed of cysteine, glutamate, and glycine.

Thimerosal remains in some vaccines and some children in the United States are still receiving Thimerosal-preserved vaccines that have lingered in medical offices or clinics. Infants and pregnant women have also begun to receive Thimerosal-containing flu shots since 2002. Toddlers and older children also continue to receive the flu vaccine containing Thimerosal.

The CDC's Thimerosal study to determine if Thimerosal-containing vaccines caused autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders was not completed and published for another year, yet they made this recommendation anyway.

The last of Thimerosal-containing DTaP and Hib vaccines are set to expire during this year.

Thimerosal-containing vaccines continue to be distributed by the United States through the World Health Organization to other countries. These vaccines have never been required or requested to have mercury removed and all still contain full dose Thimerosal.

January 2003
The Congressional Investigation continues in the newly formed Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness.

January 10, 2003
In response to Chairman Burton's letter to the White House and President Bush to announce a White House Conference to galvanize an effort to determine why autism has reached epidemic proportions, he received a letter from Bradley A. Blakeman, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Appointments and Scheduling that stated:

• "I do not foresee an opportunity to add this event to the calendar."

January 21, 2003
Michael Weinstein and Stacy Bernstein from the Department of Pediatrics Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada published a paper titled, "Pink Ladies: Mercury Poisoning in Twin Girls."

They reported that previously well developing 20 month old twin girls now presented with weakness, anorexia, a papular rash and increasingly swollen red and painful hands and feet. They were irritable, unwell, diaphoretic but afebrile. Both had tachycardia and one had elevated blood pressure. Both had decreased muscle power and diminished reflexes. They had regressed developmentally and were unable to feed orally, sit or walk. They were tested for mercury poisoning and diagnosed with acrodynia, or pink disease, a form of mercury poisoning. The girls received chelation therapy and over 8 weeks showed minor improvement in cognitive ability, but the long term prognosis was unsure.

The authors stated that although calomel-containing compounds that cause acrodynia are banned in North America, they are still used in other parts of the world and in various alternative medicines.

March 12, 2003
Congressman Dave Weldon, R of Florida, wrote a letter to the FDA voicing concerns about Thimerosal in pediatric vaccines. At this point, vaccines were supposed to be mercury free yet, in 2003, there were still vaccines on the shelves that contained full doses of Thimerosal.

March 19, 2003
Republican Congressman Dan Burton reintroduced a Bill since the first one had been ignored. The Bill, H.R. 1349, the "National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Improvement Act of 2003" had 39 co-sponsors. This Bill received the same fate as the first one and it never came to the floor for a vote.

epublicans Bill Frist of Tennessee and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire introduced a Bill, S. 15, the "Project Bioshield Act of 2003 and the Biodefense Improvement and Treatment for America Act."

The Bill would reform the Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program by cutting off children injured before 1997. It would undo the Bill introduced by Dan Burton offering due process to families of autistic children.
   
Parents fought this Bill. Senator Bill Frist came under heavy attack and the controversial language was taken out before the Bill was passed.

April 9, 2003
Republican Congressman Christopher Smith of New Jersey and Democrat Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania introduced a Bill, H.R. 1700, called the "TEACH ACT of 2003". It was co-sponsored in a bi-partisan effort by 20 members of Congress.
   
The Bill authorized the U.S. Department of Education to invest $20 million per year for 5 years in programs, grants, and scholarships to train teachers working with children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. It provided $5 million each year to states to invest in similar teacher training. It provided for a tax cut of up to $10,000 a year for teachers who take and pass courses on autism education. It required reviews of local schools and how they educate children on the spectrum as well as study the job training programs for people with autism. Congressman Mike Doyle and the Autism Caucus wrote a letter to the House of Appropriations Committee asking for an increase in autism funding. This Bill never got to the floor for a vote.

May 2003
A Congressional report from the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness Committee on Government Reform is completed. The report is called "Mercury in Medicine - Taking Unnecessary Risks". It criticizes the FDA and CDC and concludes that vaccines and other products should have mercury removed.

• "Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is likely related to autism epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding the lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal and the sharp rise of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin. Our public health agencies' failure to act is indicative of institutional malfeasance for self-protection and misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry."

Dr. Baskin with the Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery, publishes his research study. He states:

• "Thimerosal Induces DNA Breaks, Caspase-3 Activation, Membrane Damage, and Cell Death in Cultured Human Neurons and Fibroblasts."
• "Detection of thimerosal-induced DNA damage."
• "Our data indicates that thimerosal is toxic to human neurons and fibroblasts if applied in micromolar concentrations. An early sign of thimerosal toxicity is a change in cellular membrane permeability to the vital dye, which is associated with the loss of cell viability. This can be detected as early as 2 hours after incubation."
• "We showed that the concentrations of thimerosal that induced toxic effects in human cortical neurons ranged from 1 M to 250 M."
• "The cell bodies of neurons treated with higher concentrations of thimerosal were swollen, which is more characteristic for necrotic cell death, whereas cells treated with low concentrations were shrunken, as is typical for apoptosis. (programmed cell death)"

Summer 2003
Jeff Bradstreet, M.D., a family physician in Florida, published a study in "Journal of Physicians and Surgeons". He and his colleagues used an oral chelating agent, DMSA, in children with autistic spectrum disorder and controls consisting of children without autistic spectrum disorders. They found that the autistic children excreted significantly higher quantities of mercury in their urine after 3 days than did the control children who were not autistic. Additionally, vaccinated children excreted even higher amounts of mercury than did vaccinated controls.

July 2003
Members of Congress, Dave Weldon, R of Florida, Dan Burton, R of Indiana, and Dennis Kucinich, D of Ohio, called on President Bush and the White House to convene a conference of health experts to examine the issue of rising autism cases in the United States. They stated that the government has failed to investigate so far.

July 17, 2003
Senator Jon Corzine introduced S. 1422 - TEACH ACT, a companion Bill to the Congressional One.

Fall 2003
The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices continues to recommend that pregnant women in their second or third trimester and infants between 6 months and 24 months get a flu vaccine. All flu shots still contain full dose Thimerosal with only one manufacturer, Evans, producing a flu vaccine with reduced Thimerosal. The CDC states no preference for infants, children or pregnant women to receive mercury free vaccines.

The vaccines are not added to the schedules but there is a major push across the United States to vaccinate these groups. The flu shot contains more Thimerosal in one shot being given to pregnant women, 25 mcgs., than Rho-GAM contained in 2 shots combined, at 10.5 mcgs. each, that was given to Rh-Negative women during the 1990's.

November 2003
The published version of the CDC study appears in Pediatrics Magazine. The IOM relied upon these results when evaluating whether or not Thimerosal was a possible cause of Autism and other disorders. The HMOs studied had different Thimerosal exposures, different policies for covered outpatient services, different coding for disorders and one was added to the study that was a bankrupt HMO with problems with their data keeping. The conclusion by the CDC was that the findings at the different HMOs were not consistent and, therefore, Thimerosal could not be established as a cause of autism and other neurologic disorders.