I decided to post this here so I don’t have to repeat the research I’ve spent the last 2 hours doing, after talking to a vaccine worried friend about mercury in vaccines.
There are several points related to the questions of vaccines and mercury and whether you should be worried or not about whether vaccines contain mercury:
1) The mercury used in vaccines (ethylmercury) and the mercury you’re probably thinking of (methylmercury) are very different. Ethylmercury can be easily removed by the body, and is. Methylmercury is much harder and hangs around in the body for much longer.
https://www.cdc.gov/…/vacsafe-thimerosal-color-office.pdf
2) Ethylmercury isn’t actual in the vaccines, it’s thimerosal that’s used in vaccines and your body breaks that down into ethylmercury.
3) Ethylmercury is found in a wide variety of products you’ve probably used and stuck in/on your body on a regular basis, including (this is a small example list):
- makeup removers
- mascara
- eye moisturizers
- desensitizing solutions
- ear, eye, and nose drops
- eye ointments
- topical antiseptics
- soap-free cleaners
- some contact lens solutions etc.
4) I haven’t been able to find the data to support this, but I was told by a career chemist friend of mine that there’s more “mercury” in a wild ocean caught salmon, than there is in a vaccination injection.
5) From that linked pdf: “Today, no childhood vaccine used in the U.S.—except some formulations of flu vaccine in multi-dose vials—use thimerosal [the source of ethylmercury] as a preservative.” So actually you’re worrying about nothing anyway.
In summary, I’d pay no attention to “Oh noes, there’s a drop of mercury metal in every vaccine don’t you know? Why won’t they think of the ‘ickle children!” scaremongering, spread by people who have no idea what they’re talking about, and can’t be bothered to educate themselves.
