?The Food and Drug Administration?s (FDA) mission is to ?promote and protect the public health by helping safe and effective products reach the market in a timely way, and monitoring products for continued safety after they are in use. However, the FDA uses a subjective barometer in determining when a product that has known risks can remain on the market. According to the agency, ?at the heart of all FDA's product evaluation decisions is a judgment about whether a new product's benefits to users will outweigh its risks. No regulated product is totally risk-free, so these judgments are important. FDA will allow a product to present more of a risk when its potential benefit is great -- especially for products used to treat serious, life-threatening conditions.

This argument ? that the known risks of infectious diseases outweigh a potential risk of neurological damage from exposure to Thimerosal in vaccines - is one that has continuously been presented to the Committee by government officials. FDA officials have stressed that any possible risk from Thimerosal was theoretical, that no proof of harm existed.  However, the Committee, upon a thorough review of the scientific literature and internal documents from government and industry, did find evidence that Thimerosal did pose a risk.

Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is likely related to the 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.?  ?Mercury in Medicine ? Are We Taking Unnecessary Risks?? Hearing Before the Committee on Government Reform; 106^th Congress; July 18, 2000;  Serial No. 106-232

It?s ironic that we live at a time where the dissemination of a known poison and the disinformation surrounding it is being used against us as if we were the enemies in some military campaign. This goes beyond just individuals who don?t want to lose their jobs or accept responsibility that might injure their careers. Removing Thimerosal from vaccines won?t destroy the vaccination program, but it does require the infrastructure to change, and there are organizations that simply do not want that change to take place.  These organizations are making sure it stays in the vaccine schedule in the form of the flu vaccine, and that the multi-dose vials that contain Thimerosal for the other vaccines continue to stay licensed in the USA even though they are not used here.  That allows the World Health Organization (WHO) to use them in second and third world countries. The vaccine makers are reluctant to totally eliminate mercury just as the fossil-fuel industry doesn?t want to scrub mercury out of the smoke stakes of coal-fire power plants and dentists don?t want to stop using mercury amalgam filings.

Disinformation surrounding this issue is as much a danger as the mercury. The public can only perceive what is shown to them and there?s been a massive effort to keep the American people uninformed. Regrettably, it seems we have entrusted public safety to those who place compromising interests above public welfare.

In June 2000, a meeting was held at the Simpsonwood Conference Center in Norcross, Georgia.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called this meeting.  There were people there from the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the major vaccine makers, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur.  The meeting wasn?t open to the public, nor were reporters invited.  The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the results of a study done by Thomas Verstraeten, a CDC epidemiologist. He had found a statistical correlation between mercury exposure through pediatric vaccines and neurological disorders in children including autism, ADHD, stuttering, tics and speech and language delays.

Minutes of the meeting were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.  In those minutes was the glaring example of the how seriously health officials have failed the American people.  Dick Johnston, M.D. University of Colorado School of Medicine was one of the attendees.  The information about the effect Thimerosal was having on U.S. children was so alarming that Dr. Johnston related this to the others, ?Forgive this personal comment, but I got called out at eight o'clock for an emergency call and my daughter-in-law delivered a son by C-section. Our first male in the line of the next generation, and I do not want that grandson to get a Thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on.  It will probably take a long time. In the meantime, and I know there are probably implications for this internationally, but in the meantime I think I want that grandson to only be given Thimerosal-free vaccines.?. 

The obvious omission was the failure to say, ?I do not want any more U.S. children to get a Thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on.  We need to recall any and all vaccines with Thimerosal and alert doctors and health care providers to the danger.? 

Others were equally concerned about the ramifications of the information.  Dr. Bob Chen, head of vaccine safety for the CDC, was relieved that they had ?been able to keep it out of the hands of, let's say, less responsible hands." 

Dr. John Clements a vaccine advisor from WHO expressed regret that the study had been done in the first place. 

Maybe the real concern for those at the Simpsonwood meeting was best expressed by Dr. Robert Brent, a pediatrician at the Alfred I. du Pont Hospital for Children in Delaware who said:    

 ?We are in a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits.?  

The Simpsonwood attendees were told the information they discussed was ?embargoed? and no one was to reveal their findings with the public. Verstraeten was immediately hired by one of the vaccine makers (GlaxoSmithKline) in Belgium.   Over 3 years later he went on to publish the results of his analysis in the journal Pediatrics, only by this time he had diluted his findings 4 times with corrupted datasets and the significance of his original report discussed at Simpsonwood had disappeared.

(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/112/5/1039). He did not list a conflict of interest and told the journal he was an employee of the CDC when he had been an employee of GlaxoSmithKline for three years (in 2004 an errata was published online).