Health advocates have expressed outrage over a CDC recommendation that pregnant women, infants and children should continue to receive injections of thimerosal-containing flu vaccines, which contain mercury.

This recommendation comes despite an Institute of Medicine advisory that mercury-containing vaccines should not be injected into these sensitive populations.

Thimerosal's harmful effects on the immune, metabolic and nervous systems have been widely documented. However, Dr. Jay Lieberman, while making a presentation for the CDC regarding the recommendation, ignored the bulk of peer-reviewed research, and instead focused on a small number of highly criticized and flawed epidemiological studies that have found no harmful associations.

Dr. Lieberman has been a consultant to Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanofi-Pasteur, and is on the speakers' bureau for all three vaccine-makers. Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanofi-Pasteur all currently use thimerosal in their products.

The majority of flu shots contain 25 micrograms of mercury, an amount considered unsafe for anyone weighing less than 550 pounds.

Medical News Today February 24, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

How can government officials go to sleep at night knowing that they are allowing a toxic poison to be injected into harmless infants through government-mandated vaccinations in the majority of the United States?

Either these officials have no conscience or they are brainwashed and deceived. There is no doubt that mercury is a poison, plain and simple; that is why it is used as a "preservative" to kill organisms. That is also why it should NEVER be used in infants.

There is NO moral justification to use this toxic poison in defenseless infants.

How is the use of mercury in vaccines being defended?

The so-called experts and various governmental entities are being richly paid off by their tight association to the drug company cartel. Despite the fact the thimerosal is largely responsible for the blight of autism, "experts" like Dr. Jay Lieberman continue to defend its use with faulty studies.

This reprehensible behavior is likely related to the fact that Lieberman has been a consultant for three drug companies -- Sanofi-Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck -- each with their own set of vaccine problems. None of those same companies or the experts they hired would ever acknowledge that the autism trend has slowed down and even reversed since thimerosal has been removed from some childhood vaccines.

Before you think about exposing your children to a vaccine, please review the many risks and side effects associated with them first. That one step could mean the difference between life and death.

On Vital Votes, Vince from Mt. Holly, New Jersey says:

"The fact that the experts at the CDC and FDA support thimerosal in vaccines is consistent. They approved  it and they can not admit their mistake in doing that.

"The argument about genetics is a red herring. When the health hazards of smoking were still being debated one of the argument used by experts hired and paid for by the tobacco industry was that tobacco did not cause cancer but it was a genetic weakness in some smokers that caused it a very similar argument.

"To now admit that the thimerosal containing vaccines are worse than no vaccine could cause parents of autistic children to sue.

"Medicine today is almost a religion; so much of what we practice is not really supported by good evidence. One of the most sacred cows in that religion is vaccination.

"A recent BMJ article showed no reduction in the death rate of elderly who had or had not had their flu shots. The study showed benefit of inoculating this population. However almost every physician recommends flu shots.

"The case against using thimerosal in children vaccines is overwhelming. However good and highly credentialed doctors whose work demonstrates that fact are ostracized as heretics. Doctors like Andrew Wakefield, Peter Flesher, and others are shunned for their heresy. A reasoned discussion on the subject cannot be allowed."