Talk:Thiomersal/Archive01

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This archive page covers the dates between 9/27/04 to 4/24/05.

Contents

1

Hello, I don't think that thimerosal is primarily used in children's vaccines so much as it is used as a preservative in vaccines in general. Almost all flu vaccine formulations contain thimerosal, and most recipients of flu vaccine are adult. 68.163.13.242 13:34, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But that's not what it says. The article says, "...used primarily in vaccines, most controversially including those widely administered to children". The stuff is used primarily in vaccines (since merthiolate isn't available OTC anymore), and the most controversial application is in vaccines for kids. Jpgordon 17:58, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, Jpgordon. That's because I just edited it. Previously it said "used primarily in children's vaccines." 130.91.65.76 18:24, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Ah-ha! Must remember to check history to solve puzzling comments. --Jpgordon 18:52, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Link to studies please not second hand reportsGeni 17:42, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Done. ElBenevolente 23:03, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Not always easy to find them, sorry. BTW Britain's giving up on mercury jabs while persisting in denying they were bad. VoA - Awares (I witnessed the drastic cleanup measures mandated when a mercury thermometer broke in the lab at my highschool in the '80s because of the trivial amount that would evaporate and be inhaled. Why am I "nuts" for questioning an authority that still claims it's safe to stick infants with it?) 142.177.15.139 16:43, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Britian is moving to a 5 in one vacine from a four in one. Nothing to do with the saftey or otherwise of Thimerosal.Geni 21:15, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Health minister John Hutton: "Following advice from our expert committees we have decided that, at the same time, thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, will be removed from the new combined vaccine."[1] 142.177.169.163 21:09, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Thimerosal free" doesn't mean mercury-free: "as of 2003 mercury is still being included in the manufacture of several vaccines : DPT, hepatitis B, influenza, H. influenzae. (PDR, 2003)"[2] 142.177.169.163 21:09, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

1 Have got got a relible source for your claims (quoting a site that refernces so0mething called quantum healing is not a great way of improving your creedibility.

2 this article has nothing to do with mercury in vacinesGeni 10:35, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

huh? "mercury based" POV?

how is mentioning that Thimerosal is "mercury-based" even conceivably POV??? -jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:01, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Because it's carbon based. Count the atoms. Calling it mercury based clearly shows youare following an inorganics chemists POVGeni 21:34, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
After you drink a gallon of water with two grams of mercury, we can discuss whether what you drank was "water based" or "mercury based." --Leifern 00:43, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
What has that got to do with anything? Apart from anything else what you have described would be a mixeture (not even that since Hg is not misserble with H2O) not a coupound so describing it as and anything based compound would be incorrect. Thimerosal does not contain elimental Hg.Geni 00:56, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Even the FDA [3] considers it mercury-based. ElBenevolente 21:45, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Mercury based is a chemical description. The FDA opion is not the be all and end all. The compound contains more carbon than mercury so describing it as mercury based is POV. It is almost certianly posible to do organic reactions on the compound so it is only mercury based if you adopt and inorganic chemisty POVGeni 22:11, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
By weight, thimerosal is predominantly mercury. I have aleady referenced the FDA as an organization that considers thimerosal to be mercury-based. Every scientific analysis I've ever read about thimerosal concedes that it is mercury-based. Do you have any legitimate sources that claim thimerosal shouldn't be considered mercury-based? ElBenevolente 22:23, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
By weight? That's not a valid way of chemicaly decribing a compound otherwise we would have to describe Cs0.2Li0.8F as a caesium based compound/salt (no I don't know is that is posible I don't know that much about solid state chemistry). Even if we do go by wieght thimerosal is less than 50% mercury. The FDA also considers thimerosal to be mercury containing organic compound[4]Geni 23:21, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I just changed the language in the article. Are you happy with that version? ElBenevolente 23:31, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The current version fails to indicate that it is a compound rather than a mixture my prefered wording would be "organometallic compound containing mercury that is used as a preservative"Geni 23:52, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My revert

Oh boy where to begin. Lets see "the highly toxic and volatile heavy metal" This is only true when it is in it's elmental form. Thimerosal is a compound. "Though controversial when first proposed, there is growing evidence that thimerosal causes adverse effects among certain children, possibly being a contributing factor for autism and other neurological disorders." No citation.

"Congressional inquiries and investigative journalists forced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to account for the cumulative exposure to thimerosal due to childhood vaccinations, and found that the amount of mercury injected into a child at two months was 118 times the limit for daily exposure[5]." You hyave tried to use a very biased source as a cite and once again seem to be confusing the Hg in Thimerosal with elemental Hg.

There are two articles that indicate that there is growing evidence - I suppose I could cite those two articles in there. The fact that it is volatile means that it is hard to bind in a stable compound. I'm reverting it back - after you've injected yourself with hundred times the daily limit of thimerosal you can go ahead and change it. In the meantime, I have a six-year old son who is permanently damaged by the kind of irresponsibility your kind professes. Your objection to Mother Jones simply begs the question - you don't like the contents, so you assume it's biased. In the meantime, there is little to refute the facts presented. --Leifern 01:56, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
Neither of the things you have cited come from journals I recognise (certiantly they are not listed by web of knowlage). They are opinion pices and you are presenting tham as facts which goes against NPOV. I am not aware of anything in wikipedia policy that only that states you may only edit articles after you have injected yourself with stuff. I am sorry about your son but wikipedia has a no original reseach policy. Mother Jones is an opinion pice of course it is biasedGeni 07:08, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I am not introducing my son's story into the article (and as far as your sympathy, you can stuff it), but I find your dismissive POV offensive personally. You must learn the difference between opinion pieces and articles that present controversial facts. WebMD is a famous online journal, and if you haven't heard of it, that's a result of your ignorance. Mother Jones is a famous magazine, and the article cited is a result of investigative journalism - not an op-ed article. Mothering is a well-known parenting magazine. These are articles I found with five minutes worth of search. I have entered plenty of hedges and caveats in the wording of the article. At this point it is you who is unwilling to accept an opposing perspective from your own own. --Leifern 10:57, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
Of course I've heard of WebMD. However it is not referenced by ISI Web of Knowledge and I have evidence that it has a propper peer review procedure. As for the Mother Jones articile you admit it was writen by a journalist rather than someone with some real knowlage of the field. Mothering is well know to have a heavy anti vac bias. as for finding this stuff in five mins I can find stuff saying that jews are taking over the world and that evolution is a myth inside 30 sec. I could find the timecube even fasterGeni 11:25, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Geni, I honestly don't know what your agenda is here, and I'd hate to speculate, but:

  • The purpose of a free press is to make important information available to the public, independently of the scrutiny of so-called experts. The Mother Jones cites documented facts, attributes opinions to individuals, etc. It does not rely on the journalist's own opinion and includes dissenting views.
then cite the people they cite. Primary sources are better than secondardy sourcesGeni 14:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Readers of the article should judge for themselves whether the sources or citations are credible. Your own sources do not reject a link between the two; they simply state that they can't find evidence either way. In the meantime, your 2001 article is seriously dated considering the attention this issue is getting
In science we never say something is imposible (you can't prove a negative. The article I just put in came from 2004.
  • You are rejecting points of view that conflict with your own by disputing their veracity - you're not disputing the facts they present or the hypothesis they're proposing. There are two competing hypotheses here: one is that thimerosal does no harm, and the other that it does. Evidence should be presented on both sides - you're treating the issue as if it were resolved. It's not. --Leifern 13:57, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)

Then present your evidence. In particular studies from peer reviewed journalsGeni 14:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is argued as a hypothesis. There is an article cited in Nature (can't get more credible than that) that lends support to the link. If it is true as Mother Jones alleges that data was tampered with, the articles that exist are questionable. Supposedly, there are articles supporting a link under consideration for peer-reviewed articles. And if you've been involved in these journals, you'll know that a) some of the best science never makes it there; and b) it takes a long time for an article to be published, especially on a controversial subject. --Leifern 14:39, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
do you have a refernce for the nature article?Geni 16:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ehmm - read the article you keep editing - it's the last entry under External references.
oh yes I forgot volatile means it has a low boiling point. While this is true of elimental Hg I fail to see how this is relivant to thimerosalGeni 07:10, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'll change it to "highly reactive" rather than "volatile." Mercury is highly reactive because it can bind to a large number of compounds. Thimerosal is a mercury compound, and the reason health officials thought it was ok, was because it was introduced in what they thought were tiny amounts. There is absolutely no evidence that thimerosal is particularly stable, and it should be clear that it was its toxic effects that made it effective as a preservative. --Leifern 10:57, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
Hg has a Pauling electronegativity of 2[6] that is not highly reactive. How do you plan on describing Cs of F if you are going to call Hg highly reactive?Geni 11:25, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, help me out here: how would you describe a chemical element for which it is very difficult to find a stable compound? --Leifern 13:57, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)

Unreactive. However the only elements for which this is the case are krypton and maybe argon (although I'm still waiting for more reseach to come in on that one). I took me less the 1 minute to find a stable compound of mercury. There are a whole string of stable mercury(I) and mercury(II) compounds to start with. Hg2(NO3)2 for example.Geni 14:19, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Look - mercury - and especially in an organici compound - is not to be trifled with - the wp article on the element is pretty clear on that. And thimerosal wouldn't be effective as a preservative if it weren't for some level of toxicity. I don't think anyone would say that thimerosal is safe at high doses - the disagreement is what is a safe level (nobody knows for sure), and whether kids were exposed too much. Also, the long-term effects of any medical intervention are hard to discern or measure (re Vioxx and many other drugs that are being questioned these days). Add to that the fact that people have highly individual reactions to neurotoxins in general, and you have a difficult analytical task. There's uncertainty on this issue, and the article needs to reflect it. Just because the hypotheses of a link aren't conclusively proven, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or that it can't be proven. --Leifern 14:34, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
You are committing the argument from ignorance logical fallacyGeni 14:58, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
No, the rhetorical fallacy I seem to be committing is that I don't blindly agree with you. --Leifern 16:05, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
  • I'd like to suggest that both of you step back a moment...this entire debate can be resolved easily. Thimerosal can first be described neutrally and scientifically as a chemical blah blah blah; then there can be a section about the possible problems with the use of the stuff, including pointers to the arguments on both sides. Certainly, the thimerosal/mercury/autism link or lack thereof is something that our readers might want to know about; and certainly the chemical makeup of thimerosal and the history of its use is also something our readers might want to know about. This is a good example of an article where NPOV can be brought to bear productively. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 14:46, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Disputed

Although I did not enter the disputed tag, I'll contend that any allegation that thimerosal is safe is unsubstantiated and reckless. I'll concede that the extent or mechanism of the causality is unknown, but that further research is badly needed before the hypothesis can be dismissed. --Leifern 15:03, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)

Show me exatly where the article ever claim that thimerosal was safe. You appear to be constructing a strawman argumentGeni 15:08, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You are deleting all articles, facts, and arguments that point to it being unsafe, so I can only assume that your contention is that it is safe. Why else would we allow our children to be injected with it? --Leifern 15:11, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
Water is not safe. Helium is not safe. You don't want to know what the safety sheet on ethonal looks like (it's long). Thimerosal contians carbon that in some forms is a carcinogen. It contians hydrogen which is explosive in air. It contains oxeygen which is highly corrosive. It contains sodium which reacts violently with water.Geni 15:26, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I won't insult your intelligence by taking that argument seriously. --Leifern 16:01, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)

Actually, I'm going to take the disputed tag off. What's being disputed here is that Geni has taken it upon himself to censor any arguments that he/she doesn't agree with. I've never stated disputed assertions as facts, merely presented them in the context of the argument. --Leifern 16:07, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)

the opening paragraph

There is reasearch into ethly mercury safety a 30 second seach on web of knowlage confirms this. Mentioning the effects of elemental mercury makes no sense. After all you didn't list all the risks of carbon or hydrogen or oxygen or sulphur or sodium. You didn't even mention benzene which is know to be highly carcinagenicGeni 15:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

The NPOV tag seems to be predicated on an editor being unhappy about the presence of positions he disagrees with. No effort has been made to delete his/her point of view. This is an abuse of the tag, but I'll leave it for now. --Leifern 16:34, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)

Request for studies to review

As far as I know, the great majority of peer-reviewed studies done so far show that thimerosal is not dangerous to adults or to children. Offhand I am not familiar with studies examining the effect of thimerosal on the nervous system development of babies, or of a fetus in-utero. Babies and fetuses are many times more susceptible to damage due to low amounts of toxins, whether lead, mercury, or anything else. (We adults usually can withstand hundreds of times the exposure to these toxins that babies can, without significant damage.) Can anyone suggest any specific studies on these later categories (on babies and on fetuses)?

Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders: A prospective cohort study in the United Kingdom does not support a causal associationHeron J, Golding J PEDIATRICS 114 (3): 577-583 SEP 2004Geni 16:57, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Let's be clear here: the journal articles Geni is citing has their hypothesis that thimerosal is dangerous and set out to find out if the hypothesis can be proven. They do not prove the null hypothesis, which is that thimerosal is not dangerous. This is not to criticize the people who do this research - it is much harder to prove a null hypothesis than it is to fail to prove a hypothesis. The reason why these research efforts get criticized is because this is a very difficult subject to study - we can not use humans as guinea pigs in this respect. All Geni can say is that none of the available evidence convinces him that thimerosal is dangerous. All an anti-thimerosal activist can say is that he's not convinced it's safe, either. The FDA did the reasonable thing by discontinuing thimerosal in vaccines, since the uncertainty itself should make us err on the side of caution. --Leifern 17:06, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
You can't prove a null hypothesis. You are comitting the argument fromm ignorance logical fallacy again. To commit a logical fallacy once is a misfortune to commit it twice appears carelessGeni 17:10, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I am not aware of any reseach into effects on fetuses (I mean how would you get that one past an ethics committe?)17:00, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Getting to one of the real sources of the disagreement=

Although I am not familiar with the science of this issue as such, I am familiar with some of the disagreements. I think that one of the real sources of disagreement has to do with the following charge:

Mainstream medical journals, like Pediatrics and The New England Journal of Medicine, only publish studies that claim thimerosal is safe. And it turns out that these articles are written in large part by researchers in the pay of vaccine makers, as the Coalition for Safe Minds (Sensible Action For Ending Mercury-Induced Neurological Disorders), a private nonprofit organization, has shown. Editors of these journals will not publish studies that show a link between thimerosal and autism like "Thimerosal in Childhood Vaccines, Neurodevelopment Disorders, and Heart Disease in the United States" by Mark and David Geier, which documents a strong association between the amounts of mercury injected in vaccines and autism. Such articles can only find acceptance in alternative (i.e., "politically incorrect") journals like the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, where this one was published. Mercury on the Mind by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
[link removed]

Now, I do not agree with all of this this. It would be wrong to claim that the many fine scientists in most medical journals are refusing to publish peer-reviewed studies with proper controls that show a link between thimerosal and autism. That's not just false, but libelous. However, the second charge within this paragraph is valid, and is accepted as possibly true by many mainstream scientists. Many scientists now publicly recognize that the problem of vaccine makers funding studies sets up a serious conflitct-of-interest situation. It is very possible that some scientists have not acted properly, because they afraid that their funding would be cut off if they came up with the "wrong" results.

This general problem isn't a claim being made by non-scientists against the scientific community; it is a problem that the scientific community itself has been dealing with over the last 20 years, and which it is slowly making some progress in fixing. Be that as it may, for controversial cases like this topic it would be right and appropriate to bring this up within the article. This article should say that many people do not trust the findings of all these studies, because some of these "articles are written in large part by researchers in the pay of vaccine makers". There are some real scientists with real credentials who are making this claim. Leifern is correct in calling for this article to present a skeptical point of view. That would be called for by our NPOV policy, and traditional, healthy scientific skepticism. RK 16:49, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

My personal thoughts on this issue are that thimerosal is too easy a target. We can actually measure it and see it, and thus focus much of our effort on studying it. But the growing field of evolutionary biology combined with virology is teaching us that a huge number of diseases are probably caused by viruses that we simply haven't even tried to detext. (At least, not until recently.) In the past decade a growing body of peer-reviewed studies published in mainstream journals has proven this concept for a number of diseases, and the number is increasing all the time. Of course, that is not to say that thimerosal in the bloodstream of a fetus or baby is safe; I would generally assume otherwise as a matter of course. The set of medical problems we are talking about almost certainly have more than one origin. RK 16:59, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

I am very skeptical to the conspiracy theories behind all this, in part because I've done a great deal of consulting to pharmaceutical companies and found them to be ethical, conscientious and very cognizant of their public responsibility. But I do think that there is a vested interest within the medical and scientific establishment in denying correlation (never mind causality) between thimerosal and illnesses. I also agree with RK that thimerosal isn't the only thing to study. --Leifern 17:11, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)


growing evidence

Err evidence for this claim?Geni 20:11, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Read the article and the citations. --Leifern 21:48, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)
And I've explain why I think that useing secodary sources is bad. Anyway it stil violates NPOV since you are stateing the opions as facts rather than creting them to sourcesGeni 21:56, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The relevant passage reads; "Critics argue there there is mounting evidence" - that is, people argue this point. If it lowers your blood pressure, you can replace "argue" with "claim." I am not stating it as a fact. Honestly, your efforts to expunge everything that doesn't fit with your opinion are getting tiresome. --Leifern 22:12, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)
That wasn't the version I was objecting to. That is the version I edited to.Geni 22:30, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)


"What kind of person would excise a paragraph that states facts about mercury?"

One who thinks this article is about thimerosal. Titanium tetrachloride (a random example) has nothing on titanium or chlorine.Geni 22:32, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The controversy around thimerosal relates to the fact that it contains mercury. Unless we explain why this is relevant to the argument, the argument makes no sense. Even the CDC site about thimerosal explains this. --Leifern 11:32, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)
No it relates to the unproven claim that thimerosal causes autism. Your postion goes against the content of every simular article on wikipedia (eg Uranium hexafluoride Arsenopyrite Gallium arsenide Sodium chloride Mercury fulminate). This article is about about Thimerosal. You want to write about the dangers of mercury and Methyl mercury. Go ahead and do it in the relvant articles.Geni 11:48, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
OK, so you've decided - entirely on your own - that the controversy about thimerosal deserves no mention in an article about thimerosal, yet you persist in citing your own points of view. Why mention all the claims that thimerosal isn't dangerous without explaining why people think that it is? --Leifern 12:24, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)
Err the last version I put in contianed to following"Critics argue there there is mounting evidence [7] [8], inter alia, that thimerosal causes adverse effects among certain children, possibly being a contributing factor for autism and other neurological disorders. Mark Geier and his son David Geier have conducted several studies cited as evidence for banning the use of Thimerosal." That appears to me to be a mention but perhaps I am mistaken.Geni 12:38, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
We owe it to readers to explain why they believe there are adverse effects. Your edits lead me to believe you are trying to cover up or obfuscate the controversy - for what purpose, I can't understand. I am open to edits that make it clearer; but not to conceal information that would help people arrive at an informed opinion about the controversy. We can certainly create an article called "Thimerosal controversy," but then we a) have to link to it prominently in the main article; and b) remove all citations that side in the controversy, not just those that you happen to dislike. --Leifern 13:11, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)
You have failed to answer the points above. Incerdentrly what do you have aginst the image?Geni 13:17, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
By all means, feel free to reinsert the image. --Leifern 13:41, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)
That is not an answer. You removed the image I assume you have something against it. If not why did you remove it?Geni 13:45, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
As for why I don't pretend to be able to read people's mindsGeni 13:18, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

RfC

Given that two or more participants here are unable to come to an agreement regarding the content of this article, I've filed an RfC, in the hope that some moderating voices will rise to the occasion. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 14:51, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I came here from the RFC and read the article as a general reader with no background or bias on the subject. The RFC question posed is "Should the Thimerosol article contain or exclude detailed discussion of the suspected connection between autism and vaccination?" My opinion is yes. So far it looks like the article at least addresses the possibility of thimerosal being a contributing factor for autism, while making it clear that the alleged connection is currently inconclusive since the extant studies are deemed flawed. I think it wouldn’t hurt to include an additional section on the summary details of these studies giving the specific findings along with the flaws uncovered by critics. Inform the reader about the specifics each side of the medical arena is saying about these possible adverse effects of thimerosal. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 20:46, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, I just noticed the removal of this sentence: "US Congressmen Dan Burton [9] and Dr. Dave Weldon[10] are among the legislators who have supported a ban on the use of thimerosal." Why block the fact that there are moves to legislatively ban the use? There is obviously controversy around thimerosal and this shouldn't be censored; rather both sides of the controversy presented. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 21:15, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
Why should I care what happens in the lowest house of the US? There are 193 countries (at least) on this planet are we going to list the view of every member of every goverment?Geni 21:21, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Relax. Are you a pharmaceutical rep by any chance? If the subject of the article is controversial enough to be under legislative review by any country, it's notable enough to be mentioned. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 22:04, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
No I'm not. The stuff I removed made no mention of a legislative review and I am not aware of one taking place. I don't follow US p[olitics that closely though so I could be wrongGeni 22:24, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It's debatable whether the House of Representatives is the "lowest house in the US government", but with that argument we can ignore arguments made by the CDC, NIH, various medical academies in the US, etc. --Leifern 21:53, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)
becuase they have a relivant knowage base and qualifications politicians do not.Geni 22:24, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That can be said about every issue that any legislative body discusses. A) We do not live in a society where we blindly leave decisions about our health and welfare to specialists with superior knowledge base and qualifications. B) The issue we're discussing here is how to present the controversy, and your contention is that there is no controversy to present - everyone who worries about thimerosal is too unqualified or ignorant to pay attention to, even if they are elected by the people to worry about such things. C) There is no substance to support the notion that medical doctors, scientists, or organizations of these are infallible, which is what you seem to want to do. --Leifern 10:40, 2005 Apr 20 (UTC)
Congressman Weldon (mentioned above) is also a physician, and he has introduced the "Mercury Free Vacines Act of 2004". This is something that should be mentioned in a "Controversy" section. For now I'm going to add a link regarding this to the External links section. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 09:33, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

An RfC might be interesting. I certainly think that the controversy around thimerosal deserves to be covered in Wikipedia, no matter what each of us might think about the merits of each side of the issue. I'm open to creating a separate article and letting the Thimerosal article be a bland, matter-of-fact article on the compound; but I'm not open to systematically deleting any and all arguments, facts, and allegations in favor of one position or the other. --Leifern 21:53, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)

"These studies have been rejected by critics of thimerosal as flawed and possibly fraudulent as a result of conflicts of interest."

So aparently these acusation are availible in abundance. Lets see some sources then. In particular ones showing exactly which criticts make them. At the moment the article uses weasel words in this sectionGeni 22:28, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Geni - I think the point of all this is to outline and explain the controversy. Endless debates about the veracity of sources will lead to another set of accusations. I propose instead that we stick to explaining the controversy, make it explicit who is making what claims, and let the readers determine whether the opinion a small minority of parents, medical doctors, and scientists is worth taking into consideration when deciding what to do on this issue. --Leifern 10:49, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Cite sourcesWikipedia:Avoid weasel termsGeni 11:08, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What is the point of inserting links? --Leifern 14:48, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
if you are refuring to the things I have refernced above I was showing the problem with the section as i was writenGeni 14:54, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Andrew Wakefield and Mark Geier

Andrew Wakefield and Mark Geier are two scientists involved in the thimerosal/mercury-autism debate. Reviewers of this article may also want to examine and edit those articles. Mark Geier in particular seems to emphasize the debate over thimerosal and autism rather than the scientist himself; I'm concerned that there are both NPOV issues and unnecessary duplication of information and arguments. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 01:24, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

separate article?

New here myself, but I note that the article on dental amalgam, which has a very similar controversy over the use of mercury, doesn't address the issue itself but links to a separate article on dental amalgam controversy.Gzuckier 14:58, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hm. The actually isn't a proper dental amalgam article, though. It just redirects to a disambiguation-type page that lists a number of different types and uses for amalgams. The dental amalgam controversy article actually contains a more thorough description of dental amalgam than amalgam does. I think it would be much better to create a proper article at dental amalgam, and include the description of the controversy there. Dental amalgam controversy, meanwhile, contains general information about mercury as a toxin and environmental pollutant, which probably belongs in our mercury (element) article.
Quite frankly, I think that trying to split the controversy section out of Thimerosal would be doing a disservice to our readers—I'm afraid we would just be creating a POV fork with pro-Thimerosal material here and anti- arguments on a Thimerosal controversy page. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 17:01, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed many subjects that are in controversy have a separate section within the article devoted only to that controversy. I think that would be more beneficial here. The main of the article on thimerosal should, of course, be strictly about thimerosal. There should be a separate section outlining the controversy, including arguments for and against. No need to create a whole new Wikipage for it, I think. But this constant editing and re-editing is ridiculous. Keep the main of the article strictly factual, based on scientific data, preferably peer-reviewed. Opinions on thimerosal can come at the end, both for and against. It only makes sense. --The Turnip 12:07 am EST, 18 Apr 2005

That strikes me as a sound approach. On a cosmetic note, it keeps any edit-war related "dirty laundry" from sullying the strictly factual introductory material. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 04:28, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree with both Turnip and TenofAllTrades. Keep it all in one article, and address both sides of the controversy in a separate section. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 04:47, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I have added a section Thimerosal controversy to the article. I think that the stuff above that line is a good, factual, relatively uncontroversial intro. (If someone has substantially more information about the discovery and development of thimerosal, then it could be broken into another section, though.) Drop a note here if anybody has concerns about that. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 14:40, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Slant in article?

Wow, this whole article is looking like a PR campaign for thimerosol. I had never even heard of it before a few days ago, but it's quite startling to see only one side of the controversy presented here and this needs to be remedied. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 11:03, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

so all those acusations against it are not in there?Geni 12:32, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm in the process of fixing some misrepresentation of study results that implied a link between autism and thimerosal was disproven. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 12:44, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)


If you have only hesrd about this for a few days how were you able to find this stuff that fast?Geni 13:14, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Google's out there for everyone, you can use it too to try to find resources to bring more balance to this article. It doesn't take a lot of knowledge about this to recognize an attempt to whitewash. What is your vested interested in protecting Thimerosal? Your comments and edits are very POV and make me wonder whether you have stock in Eli Lilly or are employed by them. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 13:21, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)


Google on issue related to vaccination? I think not. Incerdently since when has Verstraeten been the lead coauthor? Secondaly his employment history is of no interest uless you are going to make a dirrect acuastion involveing it. Finaly accusing me of vested interests without provideing any evidence may be slightly par for the course (at the last count I have aparently been paid by quckwatch, AMA and most major drug companies) it is however totaly improperGeni 13:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Answer to Geni: What's wrong with Google? Is there any source I cited that you find not credible? I found quite a bit of information surrounding the whole situation in journals and government reports simply by searching on "thimerosal" and the name of the congressman you dismissed and deleted from the article a few days ago. He is apparently a bigger player in the ongoing controversy than you have given him credit for. What makes him especially credible is that he is a physician who is not one of the anti-vaccine people, and he says there are underlying flaws in the few studies to date because they have been conducted by researchers with an interest in *not* finding an association.

So his qualifications in epidemiology and study design are?Geni 15:50, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The IOM who released the report that is at the center of the controversy apparently found him qualified and credible enough to invite him to speak before the IOM on the matter. So I would say he is a relevant source on the topic--MPerel ( talk | contrib) 16:54, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Now on to your "beefs"... you ask, since when has Verstraeten been the lead coathor? I don't understand your question, are you saying that Verstraeten is not one of the authors of the Verstraeten study which is one of the main studies the IOC report was based upon? Anyway, I'm not the one who added that about his employment in the first place, but in the second place, it was a major factor in some of the controversy about his report, as is evident by his addressing the matter in his April 2004 letter to the editor in Pediatrics, so it should be included. Critics believed it demonstrated he had conflict of interest and that his research was biased. The other stuff halfway down page 5 on the link I provided that you referred to, I still don't understand your issue with it, but I will directly quote the source instead then.

Verstraeten is always described as the lead author. Niether of your sources ever refure to him as the lead coauthor. Which means that whoever said that it wasn't Verstraeten.15:50, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This argument seems like sophistry to me. Jayjg (talk) 16:37, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As for your vested interests, I'm not the one who said anything to you about quackwatch, AMA, most major drug companies, but if others are wondering this about you too, you may want to ask yourself if you are coming across as very POV. It's fine to have a POV, but if you insist on making POV edits and removing all edits that don't agree with your POV, you will be called on it. There was another editor here I noticed who said he has an autistic child, and I was immediately watchful of whether he might make biased edits. I see him attempting to make sure his POV is represented, but I don't see him being unreasonable and deleting all relevant info that doesn't make his case. You, however, are definitely making some POV edits, and you are demonstrating bias. I prefer collaboration rather than revert wars, so if you have any problems with my edits, please discuss them here before knee-jerk reverts, and I will do the same with you. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 14:33, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

(Edit conflict). Hi, I came here to look over the dispute, based on a request. I'm having difficult understanding why sources found via google (or any other search engine) cannot be cited; indeed, Wikipedia policy recommends citing sources, and internet sources, being easily checked, are regularly used. I was able to quickly find information on Thimerosal and autism as well using various search engines, thousands of links in fact, of varying quality, but some quite good. As for the specific controversy, the following section is the disputed one:

Following the publication of the 2004 IOM report, the lead investigator Dr. Thomas Verstraeten was hired [11] by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, a leader in vaccine development [12]. After much was written exposing the Verstraeten study's methodological problems, findings, and conclusions, Dr. Verstraeten admitted that many children in the study were too young to have received an autism diagnosis and that the study likely mislabeled young autistic children as having other disabilities. He further admitted months after the IOM released their report, "The bottom line is and has always been the same: an association between thimerosal and neurological outcomes could neither be confirmed nor refuted, and therefore, more study is required." [13][14]

As I see it, the first sentence is original research as it. However, if you can quote critics who claim that Verstraeten is baised/tainted because of this, then it is no longer original research, but instead a cited claim. The second sentence seems to have been written from an anti-Verstraeten POV; it would be better to quote the exact things he said on the subject, so there can be no accusation of such POV. As for the final sentence, "admitted" is a POV word, "stated" is a reasonable alternative. Jayjg (talk) 16:18, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You accused me I having a fincial interest in this. I don't (well Ok technicaly I might have an interest in there being more reseach into this).Geni 15:50, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I didn't see that comment; could you point it out to me? Jayjg (talk) 16:37, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wait, I found it now. It's not exactly an accusation, it's more like an insinuating question, but in any event it's inappropriate. Jayjg (talk) 17:01, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ok, Geni, I shouldn't have said that about stock in Eli Lilly etc, I'm sorry. As I recall we had a much more congenial discussion at Bahaullah awhile back. I believe you have the same good intentions I do to improve this article. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 17:14, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

US-centric perspective on controversy?

The article's discussion of the thimerosal controversy (unless I'm mistaken...?) refers exclusively to researchers in the United States, United States governement policy, and United States health and science agencies. Is there a parallel thimerosal controversy in Europe? Asia? Elsewhere? Similar or related research? Should this be addressed? If there isn't an appetite for this debate elsewhere, why not? --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 16:05, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good questions. I believe I saw something on one of the other Wiki articles days ago that I can't find now about Japan having a 10-fold increase in autism after they split children's vaccines into three separate vaccines. This apparently led some to point to a thimerosal-autism association, because giving three separate vaccines meant children were getting three doses of thimersal instead of one, and exposed to three times the mercury levels. I'd have to search for relevant sources though. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 16:22, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
On the topic of Japan, they banned the MMR vaccine ten years ago for unrelated reasons, with no affect on the autism rate: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1429115,00.html -- Novalis 07:33, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some in the UK but it is mostly tagged onto MMr and is mostly imported from the US anyway. I belive there is some stuff in the austrialia.Geni 16:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article may appear US-centric, since apart from sporadic news reports attempting to link it to MMR (which has never contained the preservative), usually quoting the two or three individuals the anti-vaccine lobby has recently inserted into Wikipedia, there is no public controversy elsewhere. The thimerosal controversy has followed legal efforts to sue over the ADDITIVE rather than the vaccine, and hence try to get cases out of the jurisdiction of the special courts. I think Wikipedians will have fun with all this. It's a bit like the campaign that says HIV doesn't cause Aids - but with a big pile of dough behind it.

Started cleanup

I edited the initial section for brevity and clarity. For example, since thimerosal contains a number of elements, there is no inherent reason to mention (in this section) that one of them is mercury, unless we're prepared to list all of them.

Now for the controversy section. It should contain a history of the case against thimerosal, starting with Wakefield and showing the sequence of studies, statements, and other notable events that have brought us to this point. A lot of different people and organizations have weighed in on the issue, and ideally we should bring in information from outside the US. (Having said that, if most of the research is done in a few countries, there's no reason to assume people react differently to thimerosal in one place than they do in another.)

I think we should scrupulously indicate who said what but avoid any value judgments about the veracity of the source. This means, for example, that we simply write "Centers for Disease Control" or "the US House of Representatives" without arguing whether the former is contaminated by a conflict of interest and the other is the lowest house in the US.

Does anyone have a problem with this approach? --Leifern 22:04, 2005 Apr 20 (UTC)


Wakefield was pretty late in and he's MMR not thimerosal.Geni 22:18, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System

There's a new article on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Right now it's pretty heavy on thimerosal-related material, so I have two reqeusts:

  • Check the content for neutrality (I've tried to clean it up a bit, but the more eyes the better)
  • Add in other useful content—both information about the background and use of VAERS, and information about its use in biomedical/epidemiological studies.

Thanks. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 21:31, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)


could someone check this link?

Does this link work for everyone?

a paper

if not does this one:

an abstract22:19, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, both links work for me. Thanks, Geni, for the link to the original study; I hate to see "science-by-press-release". --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 22:58, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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