More Mercury Data
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Jason   Mar 2, 3:31 pm     show options

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From: j...@nospam.com (Jason) - Find messages by this author
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 15:31:42 -0800
Local: Wed, Mar 2 2005 3:31 pm
Subject: More Mercury Data
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BY MICHLEEN COLLINS
Springfield radiologist David Ayoub is helping lead the push in
Illinois to rid vaccines of a mercury-based preservative
PHOTO BY NICK STEINKAMP

For more than a year, Springfield radiologist David Ayoub has immersed
himself in the noisy politics of a silent disease. He's familiar with
the characteristic blank stares of autistic toddlers and the quiet
panic of parents wandering uncharted medical, financial, and emotional
territory.

He's equally familiar with the quiet panic of pharmaceutical giants
who can read the writing on the wall.

The big drug companies, according to recent reports, may have known for

years of the potential risks of thimerosal, a mercury-based
preservative used in many common vaccines. Mercury exposure has been
linked in several studies to neurodevelopmental disorders that afflict
children, including autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder.

Ayoub has plunged into the scientific literature - and emerged fully
convinced that the case against the preservative is "unequivocal."
He's helping lead the push in Illinois to ban mercury from vaccines,
an effort that's gaining momentum even though it has yet to be
embraced by much of the medical and public-health community.

Not the sort to put much faith in the establishment, Ayoub says that
trust in government and mainstream medicine can be badly misplaced.

"The debacle with Vioxx and other drugs should be a warning," he
says. "The system can fail. Sometimes it can fail spectacularly."

Ayoub, 45, isn't one to seek the limelight, but it often finds him.
At Peoria High School, he set a state track record that still stands.
At the University of Illinois, the two-time All-American in track and
field earned a Big Ten title. In the honors program there, he was
thinking fast, too. He critiqued scientific studies weekly for two
years and says it helped him hone his ability to spot flawed research.

As an undergrad, in 1983, he broke another record when his work was
published in the elite journal Science. The coup led to a flurry of
national media coverage, and Ayoub recalls being teased for being
"sex-obsessed" by a Peoria newspaper reporter because the study he
co-authored was focused on differences between neurons in the brains of

male and female juvenile macaque monkeys. "Sex differences in the
brain was a hot topic at the time," Ayoub says.

Since then, Ayoub's been teaching and practicing radiology. He's
lived in Springfield 14 years and works part-time at Memorial Medical
Center in addition to carrying out the duties of his post as director
of the Prairie Collaborative for Immunization Safety.

In 2003, while reading medical journals, Ayoub decided to investigate
breakthrough biomedical treatments at a Defeat Autism Now! conference
in Washington, D.C. "Once you attend a DAN conference, you don't
come back the same," he says.

Now he's begging physicians to take a closer look at new treatments
and old problems. He's summarized his exhaustive research on an
extensively documented CD, which he's titled The Science and Politics
of Vaccine-Induced Autism. He says that physicians can no longer afford

to blindly trust the literature.

Ayoub has joined forces with others, such as Springfield lobbyist Laura

Cellini, whose son Jonathan is autistic. They're pushing the Illinois
General Assembly to pass legislation banning the use of vaccines
containing thimerosal. The effort is similar to last year's
unsuccessful push in neighboring Missouri, where a filibuster in the
state Senate killed the bill.

Illinois' version, the Mercury-Free Vaccine Act, is sponsored by Rep.
Kurt Granberg, D-Carlyle. The bill specifies that no one in Illinois
under the age of 3 years or who is pregnant may be given a vaccine
containing more than 0.5 micrograms of mercury per 0.5-milliliter dose,

or an influenza vaccine containing more than 1.0 microgram of mercury
per 0.5 milliliter dose. The bill was approved in the House Feb. 16 by
a vote of 115-0, and moved on to the Senate, where it was set for first

reading on Wednesday, Feb. 23. The Senate bill is sponsored by Senator
Mattie Hunter, D-Chicago.

Even if the bill becomes state law, Illinois could be trumped by
Congress, which is considering Senate Bill 3, the Protecting America in

the War on Terror Act of 2005. The proposed federal legislation, which
increases benefits for the families of U.S. soldiers who die in Iraq,
also includes language protecting vaccine makers from product liability

under the guise of bioterrorism protection.

According to the Coalition for SafeMinds (Sensible Action for Ending
Mercury-Induced Neurological Disorders), a nonprofit advocacy group
based in Cranford, N.J., the federal legislation would block civil
claims for injuries caused by mercury in vaccines. Lujene Clark of St.
Louis, president of nomercury.org, which serves as an information
clearinghouse for advocates of a thimerosal ban, says the legislation
would also prevent states from banning mercury, regulating drugs, or
warning citizens that mercury-containing vaccines or other drugs may be

dangerous. Clark says it includes sweeping changes in
pharmaceutical-product liability, research, and the Vaccine Injury
Compensation Act, which already gives drug companies unprecedented
protection.

With federal bills pending, states are moving fast to pass mercury
bans. Last year, Iowa and California passed laws restricting the use of

mercury in vaccines. Nine states - including Illinois - are
considering similar legislation. The anti-mercury effort also extends
to the dental profession.

In Arizona, a bill to warn parents and pregnant women that mercury
fillings can harm the developing brain of a child or a fetus has
garnered bipartisan support. Another bipartisan effort in New Mexico
resolves to study the health and environmental impact of mercury
amalgam fillings.

This flurry of legislative action provokes reactions ranging from
skepticism to fear among many health professionals. They contend that
thimerosal's critics are alarmists, that an outright ban risks the
return of dreaded diseases.

Dr. Lawrence Frenkel, professor of pediatrics and microbiology at the
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford, says people are

being needlessly frightened.

"It's the bogeyman," says Frenkel.

"The level of thimerosal, or the ethylmercury [in pediatric
vaccines], is very, very low," he says. "Yes, it reaches the safety
margin for methylmercury, but that's not been proven to be an issue
or a problem."

Frenkel says the risk doesn't outweigh the consequences of not
getting children immunized.

"I'm old enough to have seen children suffer and die with many
vaccine-preventable diseases," says Frenkel. "The vaccines are
better than the disease."

Mercury occurs naturally in the environment, in either inorganic or
organic forms. According to the federal government's Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry, organic forms of mercury, such as
ethylmercury and methylmercury, have "a significantly greater toxic
effect than other mercury compounds." Federal regulatory agencies
have set limits to the exposure from ingestion of methylmercury -
found in fish - but not ethylmercury, found in vaccines.

That doesn't mean, however, that state and federal agencies have
failed to limit exposure to thimerosal. In 1982, FDA officials said
that thimerosal was "not safe for over-the-counter topical use."
Thimerosal has also been on California's Proposition 65 list of known
reproductive and developmental toxins for more than a decade. It was
removed from animal vaccines in the '90s.

U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chaired the oversight committee that in
2003 produced a report on the use of mercury-based vaccines titled
Mercury in Medicine. The committee heard expert testimony and examined
research from leading universities. Burton concluded: "It should be
crystal-clear by now that mercury is a toxic substance that does not
belong in pediatric vaccines."

Drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc., still contending with the Vioxx
controversy, is one of the companies embroiled in the thimerosal
dispute. According to an internal memo obtained by the Los Angeles
Times, thimerosal was on Merck's radar as early as 1991. Merck
executives expressed concern that babies could be exposed to
dangerously high thimerosal levels. The memo noted that some
6-month-old children would get a mercury dose "up to 87 times higher
than guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of mercury from
fish."

Eli Lilly and Co. introduced thimerosal around 1930 with minimal safety

testing. According to the Burton committee report, a 1935 internal
document noted that Merthiolate, the brand name for thimerosal, was
unsatisfactory as a serum for use on dogs.

Mercury foes don't like GlaxoSmithKline, either. The pharmaceutical
giant hired Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, a Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention scientist and lead author of a controversial study published

in Pediatrics in 2003. Activists criticized the journal for failing to
disclose that Verstraeten was now employed by GSK, a vaccine-maker
named in thimerosal litigation.

In June of 2000, Verstraeten had presented the results of his review of

vaccination data, which suggested a link between thimerosal and
neurological disorders. However, after several drafts, the version
published in Pediatrics indicated that a link could not be confirmed.

National media headlines trumpeted that thimerosal had been cleared,
fueling the anger of parents who had seen the original data showing a
link. After much public outcry, Verstaeten wrote to Pediatrics to say
that the results were inconclusive and more research was needed.

The controversy heightened when activists obtained transcripts from an
off-site meeting convened by the CDC in 2000. Vaccine experts -
including pharmaceutical company representatives - gathered to
discuss Verstraeten's findings. According to the transcripts,
Verstraeten said that when he saw the literature, he was stunned
because he thought a link was plausible.

Advisory-committee member Dr. David Johnson said that he was concerned
enough that he did not want his grandson to get a thimerosal-containing

vaccine.

After analyzing the Verstaeten data, researchers at SafeMinds found
strong evidence of a link. A SafeMinds release reports that
Verstaeten's initial analysis indicates that CDC officials were aware
in 1999 of an 11-fold increase in autism risk among children who
received thimerosal-containing vaccines. Noted impairments included
"an unspecified developmental delay," ADHD, tics, language and
speech delays, and "the entire category of neurodevelopmental
delays."

In 2001, the CDC commissioned the Institute of Medicine to examine the
thimerosal-autism evidence. The IOM's first analysis found the
hypothesis "biologically plausible" and called for further
research. A 2004 reanalysis rejected any link.

According to nomercury.org's Lujene Clark, IOM committee-meeting
transcripts were leaked and turned over to authorities. The transcripts

suggest that CDC officials pressured committee members.

"The CDC contracted and paid for this series of reports from the
IOM," says Clark. "They made it very clear that they wanted the IOM
to give the nod, to say that 'We see no problems.' That's very,
very frightening."

Emerging evidence suggests that mercury was the last biochemical straw
for some kids - especially those who got 187 micrograms of mercury
during the first six months of life. Autism may be caused by a genetic
predisposition triggered by heavy metal or pesticide insults that
damage metabolic pathways.

Dr. Jill James, a University of Arkansas biochemist, recently published

a study showing that kids with autism have a highly abnormal metabolic
profile. "They have very low levels of ... glutathione," says
James. "Glutathione is well established to be the major mechanism of
mercury detoxification and excretion.

"Given an equal exposure to heavy metals - and we'd want to focus
on any of them; mercury could be one, arsenic, lead - if you've got
less glutathione around, it's going to be more toxic."

Scientists have found heavier body burdens of mercury in autistic kids,

implying an impaired ability to get rid of the heavy metal. Additional
research has found that thimerosal induces DNA breakage, membrane
damage, and cell death in human neurons. Inherited DNA breakage could
leave each subsequent generation more vulnerable to heavy-metal damage.

Replicated studies of baby hair and teeth hav

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