Truth Left Out of Vaccine
Chances are slim that a flu vaccine with a form of mercury in it will harm infants and toddlers. But enough concerns have been raised about the preservative thimerosal that drug companies voluntarily took it out of most other childhood vaccines. There’s probably no need for immediate alarm, because the problem with other vaccines was the accumulation from several closely spaced injections. What is more disturbing is the cavalier attitude of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which decided it was just fine to put thimerosal in flu vaccine destined for young children without so much as an advisory to parents.
It’s possible, though a little harder and more expensive, to make flu vaccine without thimerosal. Such shots are available but in limited supply. CDC officials worry that if parents refuse the more common shot, the nation will run short of the thimerosal-free vaccine. The issue is of particular concern this year because, for the first time this fall, young children are on the list of those who should be vaccinated. Recent statistics showed that infants and toddlers were at high risk for complications from flu.
Public health officials are right about the flu posing a greater danger to a child than the mercury in a dose of vaccine. But that’s not a good reason to keep parents in the dark, especially after the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration issued detailed warnings in March calling for pregnant and nursing women -- and babies and preschoolers -- to eat very limited amounts of tuna and other fish high in methyl mercury, another form of the metal. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can harm brain development in young children.
It makes sense to reserve the existing supply of mercury-free vaccine for babies and young children and to strongly encourage drug companies to produce more of it. At a minimum, parents should be advised that there are two vaccines available and what the differences are.
Efforts to avoid a panicked run on thimerosal-free vaccine smack of the same misplaced paternalism that led California to withhold precautionary potassium iodide pills from people living near nuclear power plants. State health officials said that if they distributed the pills -- which, if taken promptly, can protect the thyroid from damage in a nuclear catastrophe -- people might stay at home instead of evacuating the disaster area. It’s more than insulting to treat people as though they’re that stupid, and California eventually sent out the pills.
The CDC should take a lesson.
