CoMeD Challenges U.S. Government on Mercury in Vaccines

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- CoMeD – As vaccine safety advocates prepare for United Nations (U.N.) negotiations to develop a global legally binding instrument on mercury, the Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs (CoMeD), a grassroots coalition of physicians, researchers and parents, is challenging U.S. policy that sanctions the use of mercury (Thimerosal) in vaccines and other drugs.  The negotiations, to be held Oct. 31 through Nov. 4 in Nairobi, Kenya, seek to improve controls on environmental and medicinal uses of mercury.

At a D.C. stakeholders meeting at the U.S. State Department on August 18, 2011, CoMeD took issue with its filing of an anonymous document, "Scientific Information Regarding the Use of Thimerosal As a Preservative in Vaccines" with the U.N., which claimed that this use of Thimerosal in vaccines is "safe" and "effective".

"You're telling me that a substance so toxic it is illegal to put it on your skin, is somehow safe for injection into pregnant women and children at the same level?" asked Rev. Lisa Sykes, CoMeD's President.  

In response to the U.S. government's continuing refusal to recognize Thimerosal as a neurodevelopmental toxin, CoMeD submitted its science-supported response, "A Reconsideration of Fact," to the U.N., demonstrating that the U.S. has: a) provided little scientifically sound information and b) made unfounded and dangerous claims regarding Thimerosal's safety for use as a "preservative" in vaccines.

The issue of mercury in vaccines and other drugs has increasingly become a focus of these U.N. Negotiations, because, as Dr. Mark Geier declared at the State Department meeting, "Most developed countries are removing Thimerosal from all of their vaccines, while developing countries continue to be supplied with mercury-containing vaccines."

While the U.S. and some other developed nations continue to defend the use of Thimerosal, the African Group within the U.N. Treaty Negotiations has declared: "The use of mercury in pharmaceutical products where alternatives exist should also be prohibited. Existing stocks should not be sold to the developing world."  

On behalf of the United Methodist Church, Harriett Olson, Deputy General Secretary of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church, stated for the record:  "To safeguard all persons from the unnecessary and often undisclosed administration of a known neurotoxin and carcinogen through their medicines is a cause worthy of both the faith community and the diplomatic body which gathers to write a global legally binding instrument on mercury."

SOURCE Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs (CoMeD)