Dangerous shots

[MarkOfEternity]

This is something that I'm currently going through with my wife. We recently learned that some of the shots that the doctors told us we had to give our children for them to attend school contained mercury. Fortunately, our children seem fine. However, other children are not so lucky. The mercury in these shots are known to have a chance to cause autism in children. It is no longer required for children to get these shots that contain mercury, however doctors "strongly urge" parents to use these shots. Additionally, if you can't afford the shot without mercury in it, and you do refuse to get the shot with mercury in it, you simply don't get the shot. Mind you, the doctor gives you a voucher that allows you to attend school anyway, you're just not immunized.

[ffchild]

Yeah...I don't think people should be forced to take something they don't want. I'm just glad schools don't require it anymore...

[Ruto]

I've a few questions:

 

1. What kind of shots are they? (HIV, tetanus, etc.)

2. Where do you live where shots were once mandatory (just a general area or the state you live in)?

3. Have any of the children who received the shots with mercury actually gotten autism?

 

In my school district, getting a tetanus shot is mandatory if you want to keep going to school. (I just received one a few months ago.) I think there's a couple of other mandatory shots, I just can't name them off the top of my head.

[Patch]

first of those shots DONT cause autism. they do not increase the chance of autism. the reason that the shot were linked to autism in the first place is because those shot are given around the time autism starts to become noticeable. if you live in the us the preservative that contains mercury is called thimerosal this should not be in any shots now days it was fazed out around 1992. to ease your mind there have been over 900 studys to determine if vaccines are linked to autism, all of these studys have found no link between autism and the vaccines. second the amount of mercury in theses shots are less than the amount that your child would get eatting a tuna sandwich. (tuna has a high level of mercury and other heavy metals). lastly i truly believe that the benifits of vacines vastly outweigh the harms. i mean we are preventing your kids from contracting diseases that devistated our grandparents and our great grandparents. also just think of all the people that had these vacines and turned out ok. i mean you had them and you turned out ok.

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p.s i know this information because both my parents are doctors and i like to read their medical journals.

[MarkOfEternity]

1. What kind of shots are they? (HIV, tetanus, etc.)

 

I'm not as up on the science as Patch. I just know they were vaccinations.

 

2. Where do you live where shots were once mandatory (just a general area or the state you live in)?

 

I live in the U.S., central Illinois. I think they were mandatory, once.

 

3. Have any of the children who received the shots with mercury actually gotten autism?

 

Apparently, Patch will tell you no. But I've read stories, so I guess I don't really know. My wife does all the research on this, and she is convinced it is true.

[antiaircraft]

Okay, speaking from a scientific standpoint, a few individual stories aren't usually considered proof of a link between a problem and a possible cause - there could be any number of other factors (including human bias) that affect the outcome of the situation and how it is interpreted. You need to make a study of a large number of cases to say that there's a definite link.

 

However, mercury is a dangerous chemical to mess with - no sensible health organisation should include noticeable concentrations of it in vaccinations. Now, I'm haven't researched this at all, so I don't know what the exact levels are, but I'm reasonably sure that seafood from polluted areas (all too common these days) actually has higher concentrations of mercury than you could get from a vaccine containing thiomersal. I'm not sure about this though, I'll have to research this a bit more.

 

Edit: I found a Wikipedia article on this topic, and it seems that while there have been thousands of lawsuits concerning this, there's no conclusive medical evidence for a link between thiomersal vaccines and autism. That's not to say it's definitely safe though...

[Patch]

but no vaccines in the US should be contain thiomersal after 1992. if you know of one or if your doctor is using one contact the CDC quick!!

[Ithil]

Never heard that before o_O

 

Like AA said, mercury is a dangerous stuff and shall not used in vaccines, or only in very small amounts.

But I wonder against which disease these vaccines are for? There must be one or a couple of diseases targeted by these shots. It will be useful to know which one to search proper information.

[spunky_munky_gal]

First off, I am a firm supporter of vaccines. However, I do think it's important that concerns aren't just dismissed - remember it wasn't that long ago that there was no established link between smoking and lung cancer. Anecdotal evidence might not be enough, but sometimes where there's smoke...

 

That being said, it does sound a little bit like the diet coke poison urban myth that was doing the rounds a little while ago.

[antiaircraft]

Well honestly speaking, the best solution would be to simply offer up-to-date, thiomersal free and properly tested vaccines to everybody for free. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon. :(

[Ellie_Penguin]

Well, one of the babies I babysit isn't going to get his shots until he is at least 3 years old. This is because, his mom has a friend whose son got autism because of the shots. This baby's doctors are actually pretty sure the shots caused the autism and are now running tests and investigating more. I also read the Wikipedia article and while there is no sufficient evidence, doesn't mean it hasn't happened. This can easily take at least 5 years for more evidence to emerge and even if there are lots of cases, scientists cannot alarm the public too much if they don't have thousands of cases where they can prove the mercury in shots cause autism. Remember the study of the flu shots that don't actually work for most people? I remember watching the news and they said it took about 5 years of collecting evidence to actually make the case public.

[m3l3ana]

Ok but if the mercury in the shots can cause autism, then shouldn't we ban eating tuna? Since everyone knows that has a hell of a lot of mercury in it! Just hypothetically speaking ofcourse since I don't live in the US.

[antiaircraft]

Well to sum up my opinion on this debate: there's a plausible link between these shots and autism. It hasn't been proven yet, but it's always better to go on the safe side. Thiomersal vaccines have already been phased out, so technically they shouldn't be in use anyway.

[Tess!]

Shots are too expensive in general. Mercury is obviously bad for kids, so the shots, necessarily, should be subsidized.

[Unstream]

Okay, I've done some intensive study on autism recently. I'm going to let everyone know that the mercury in the vaccinations are harmless. It is a certain type of mercury that is easily flushed out of the body. I mean, there are countries out there that only give vaccinations with mercury in them, and those countries have a lower autism rate than the United States. I believe autism is related to the amount of pollution in the environment, which may cause a mutation in a gene, causing autism. Apparently, they've even detected the gene with the "autism mutation." Many things can cause the mutation, such as the environment the mother is in.

 

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