[This post appeared previously at Red Wine and Apple Sauce.]
Several articles published in Pediatrics today discuss an issue
that could affect the protection of children everywhere from
vaccine-preventable diseases. The posts center on a controversy
that keeps coming up related to vaccines – the use of thimerosal
in them. All three Pediatrics articles deal with the same thing:
an international treaty drafted by the United Nation
Environmental Program’s Global Mercury Partnership to reduce
mercury pollution and environmental mercury exposure across the
world. Great! This is an important and valuable initiative –
except for one part. As part of the treaty, the UN wants to ban
the use of thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative, used
in vaccines. Not so good. The short version for why? This
proposed ban threatens millions of children’s lives across the
world, including children in the U.S. and in other developed
countries. I’ll get to the long version in a moment. First, the
World Health Organization and Am