The vaccine advisers of RFK Jr. Increase the fear of proven fears about the Thimerosal preservative

An influential committee that forms the American vaccine policy – a flash point led by the Minister of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – has recommended that adults and children no longer receive flu vaccines that amounts to a preservative That is rarely used more.

The discussion of Thimerosal, a form of mercury that is sometimes added to vaccines for sterilization, dominated a large part of the public meeting on Thursday of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices or ACIP. The committee guides the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the vaccine schedule for children and adults.

The two-day meeting on the CDC headquarters in Atlanta was unusually controversial, given Kennedy’s recent decision to start the entire committee of experts a few weeks ago and to replace them with his own hand-chosen schedule, including some members with a history of making in any case claims about the safety of vaccines.

While Acip usually includes 17 members entitled to vote, the revised panel of Kennedy only included seven of them, after a last-minute decision by one of them to resign.

On Thursday, a majority of the panel voted to re -confirm the existing CDC recommendations that everyone older than six months receives the annual flu shot. They also voted 5-2 for a monoclonal antibody shot made by Merck that provides protection against respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, for infants younger than 8 months.

But in three separate voices, the Commission voted to recommend children, pregnant women and all adults receive some dose of flu immunisations with vaccines that have no thimerosal.

Theories that chemical could cause autism in children long -mirror. Nevertheless, manufacturers have voluntarily removed it from vaccines for children. While it is used In some bottles with multiple doses In various products there are no vaccines on the schedule for pediatric vaccine that contains Thimerosal.

The ACIP votes can effectively prohibit the use of the preservative, despite a predominance of evidence that it is safe.

Dr. Cody MeissnerA pediatric professor at Dartmouth College was the only ACIP member who voted against those recommendations.

“Of all the problems that ACIP needs to be focused, this is not a major problem,” he said. “The risk of influenza is so much greater than the non-existent, as far as we know, the risk of Thimerosal.”

He added: “There is no scientific evidence that Thimerosal has caused a problem.”

Meissner’s comments came in response to a long presentation about the preservative of Lyn Redwood, a nurse and former president of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine canges that Kennedy has founded and led for many years.

“The removal of a well -known neurotoxin of injected in our most vulnerable population is a good place to start making America healthy again,” she told the committee.

Much of what Redwood said about Thimerosal was undermined by A CDC document That was originally posted with the meeting material – and then without an explanation before the meeting removed. The detailed peer-reviewed literature that “does not show a connection between prenatal exposure to thimerosally containing vaccinations and autism spectrum disorder in children.”

In response to a question about why the document had been deleted, Dr. Robert Malone, an ACIP member, that his understanding was that it was not “authorized by the secretary’s office”.

Members of the Commission doubted the analyzes of CDC and wondered if they ignored data on side effects that appeared in relation to the studies they presented, even after the staff had explained that they had thoroughly dissected the data.

Prominent medical groups welcomed the recommendations for flu and RSV, but expressed their concern about the overall tone of the meeting.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, chairman of the Commission for Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that the ACIP discussion about the flu and RSV “confirmed that this is an orchestrated effort to sow distrust in immunisations and the vaccine approval process.”

Although the person who serves as a CDC director, usually registers with ACIP recommendations, there is currently no one in the role, so the responsibility for signing these recommendations goes to health secretary Kennedy.