Dr. Paul Offit thinks that pulling Thimerosal out of vaccines was a Bad Idea

Another response to the Vaccine Industry's point man

Paul Offit wants to put Thimerosal back into vaccines.

Mercury Rising

Summarizing his latest post:

• Preservatives like thimerosal were required to prevent cellulitis and sepsis after vaccination with untreated vaccines a hundred years ago so we shouldn’t have removed them from DTap, Hep-B and HiB vaccines 25 years ago

• There was an infant who died of fulminant Hepatitis 26 years ago because the mother was Hep-B positive and the child didn’t get vaccinated

• There has been no evidence that shows that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism, and levels of mercury in the blood do not increase after vaccination with products that have thimerosal in them

• The FDA made a mistake in 1997 when it investigated which products they were regulating contained mercury because it spawned anti-vax paranoia

• Secretary Kennedy is seeking to sow distrust of vaccines so he and his personal-injury lawyer “friends” will make more money

My response:

I support Kennedy and have worked for Children's Health Defense in the past. I am a doctor with no training in epidemiology or infectious diseases. How and why would someone like me decide to support him?

It's not because I was seduced by his messaging. It's not because I am stupid. It's because I am a father first. Just as important, it's because of posts like these from folks who are the spokespersons for the medical establishment. While Kennedy may not be a doctor he doesn't misrepresent information the way Dr. Offit does here. Paul is a smart fellow. I don't for one second believe that he believes what he is saying.

I will break down Dr. Offit's lapses in logic and lack of coherence.

Taking thimerosal out of multi-dose vials is a mistake, because Offit says, it would lead to cellulitis, abscesses and blood stream infections because that's what happened in the days before preservatives. Agreed. These can be avoided in two ways: stop using multidose vials, or put other, safer "preservatives" in the formulation.

I don't inject children with vaccines. I am an anesthesiologist, so I do my fair share of injecting things into people on a daily basis. When we are injecting anesthetic into the most vulnerable parts of a patient's body, like the epidural space or the intrathecal space (which bathes the spinal chord and brain) we never, ever inject anything with preservatives. Why? Because they are toxic at some level. They are designed to prevent the growth of bacteria, i.e. they kill living organisms. That's why we keep them away from nerve cells.

So Paul is saying that it would be okay to leave thimerosal in vaccines and give them to millions of children? Why? Why not just eliminate multidose vials? Is it too expensive for our kids?

Next, Offit subtly substitutes thimerosal with "preservatives". Is he really advocating for a derivative of what is arguably the most neurotoxic elements to be given to children when alternatives exist?

Then Offit attacks the AAP for advocating for the removal of thimerosal from the DTaP, Hep-B and HiB vaccines because they kowtowed to the "antivaccine" movement. Okay. What happened next? Was there an outbreak of abscesses and infections like he predicted would happen? No there wasn't. So no harm done. Why didn't he mention this if that is his argument?

Instead he points to a single case of a baby who died with fulminant hepatitis-B 26 years ago because the facility where the child was born was concerned about the thimerosal in the Hep-B vaccine. How do we know that the vaccine would have prevented the death? We don't know that. In fact, the number of children needed to be vaccinated to prevent a single infant mortality in this country is far greater than 1,000. The vaccine is good, but it is not perfect and it doesn't help every child who gets it.

In this case, the child was born to a mother who tested positive for Hep-B and would have probably benefited from having their baby vaccinated. The hospital was unaware of her positive serology test. But Offit cannot state that vaccination would have saved this child in particular. That requires a vaccine that is 100% effective. Right now, over 90% of infants are vaccinated for Hep-B. That still means that there are millions of kids who never received the vaccine. Yet there are virtually no infant mortalities from Hep-B.

Offit states that "antivaxx" people "pounced" when the FDA investigated the use of thimerosal in medical products in 1997. "No one more so than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who wrote a book titled, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak (in which the science never actually spoke)."

Paul, the problem here is that that book was written in 2014, 17 years after the FDA took action. You've got the entire timeline wrong. Neither did he write the book himself. It was co-authored by MDs, one of which is a pediatric neurologist whom I know personally. And yes, they cited tons of science, including epidemiological patterns, cellular and animal studies and CDC funded studies that all suggested harm from thimerosal. You are blatantly misrepresenting the facts.

Offit then says that there are "about ten" studies that show no harm. But these studies weren't designed to investigate "harm", they were designed to test the hypothesis that thimerosal was linked to autism. It is true that they didn't show a link to autism. What is interesting about most of them is that the incidence of autism INCREASED after thimerosal was removed.

What does this mean? That mercury derived preservatives in vaccines prevent autism? Of course not. It means that the study was confounded by other factors. Could it be an increase in the number of vaccines children were exposed to during the observational period? Maybe. Uh-oh...

On the same page (which takes you to a PSA site from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where I also trained) the reader is treated to more information is given "in support "of the safety of mercury. There was an incident in Iraq in 1971 where people ate grains fumigated with mercury. Thousands were hospitalized, 450 people died. Pregnant mothers who ate these products did NOT have children with an increased risk of autism. (Phew!)

They did, however give birth to babies who had epilepsy and mental retardation at higher rates. So it's okay to inject these derivatives but not eat them? Nothing to see here...

Offit then rehashes a specious argument that "studies had shown that the level of mercury in the bloodstream doesn’t change after receiving thimerosal-containing vaccines". This is particularly intriguing. Kennedy tells of a conversation with Offit on this specific topic years ago when Paul cited this particular evidence of safety.

The question that Kennedy posed, which Dr. Offit never answered, is what happened to the mercury? How do we know that some of it doesn't leave the bloodstream and accumulate in the tissues and brain? Bobby said that Paul never answered the question, and they never had another direct conversation again.

Would you care to answer that Dr. Offit? Do you have a study that you can cite which looks at mercury concentrations in the brains of children who suffered neurodevelopmental disorders after receiving thimerosal containing vaccines? Or is this the reason why you declined to ever have another public conversation with the Secretary of HHS?

Lastly, Offit cites Kennedy's "lengthy history of suing vaccine makers for false claims of harm". Which lawsuits Paul? To my knowledge Kennedy has only sued Merck for the harms caused by their HPV vaccine. That suit is yet to be adjudicated, so you have no grounds to call them "false claims of harm". In any case, are you opposed to holding vaccine manufacturers accountable if there is sufficient evidence that their products cause harm in specific cases? We both know that the Vaccine Injury Compensation fund has paid out over $5 billion dollars to over ten thousand families with children who have suffered devastating injury from these products. You are okay with letting the public foot the bill for these injuries?

Children's Health Defense has brought a number of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers during the pandemic but Kennedy is not directly involved with those cases. He is has not been affiliated with this organization for over two years.

This post is more Vaccine Industry propaganda from their biggest spokesperson which can be dismantled in just a few minutes of cross checking his claims.

It's amazing that you would even write a post like this, Paul. Are you really advocating for putting thimerosal back into vaccines? Why on Earth would you want that? There are alternatives. There is no necessity for this. There hasn't been the explosion of infections since thimerosal was pulled from most vaccines.

When you attack people like Lyn Redwood, a nurse practitioner who has been digging into the data and studies for decades and has cared for a child with neurodevelopmental issues immediately following inoculation with thimerosal containing vaccines you are losing all credibility as an advocate for children's health.

This is why more and more people and those with medical training are backing the referendum on vaccines and a revamping of their regulatory agencies.