Thimerosal and the things you need to know

Thimerosal is a preservative commonly found in the ingredient list of vaccines. Although this mercury compound has been shown to be harmless to humans, scientists still remove it from the vaccine manufacturing process. Let's join aFamilyToday Health to learn more about this issue.

Thimerosal - mercury-containing compounds - are known to be the most commonly used preservatives commonly found in multi-dose drugs or vaccines. There are two types of mercury compounds, methyl mercury - easily found in some fish species and ethyl mercury - that are part of thimerosal. If the concentration of methyl mercury absorbed in the human body reaches a certain threshold, it will be capable of causing toxicity to the nervous, cardiovascular, reproductive, immune systems, and even a premise for many types. cancer or, worse, death. Meanwhile, ethyl mercury is eliminated by the human body faster, so its harmful ability will be greatly reduced compared to methyl mercury.

Why do manufacturers use thimerosal as a preservative for vaccines?

Manufacturers include thimerosal in vaccine preparation as a preservative because:

In the multi-dose vaccine: thimerosal prevents infection by pathogens such as bacteria or fungi. When the needle is inserted into a multi-dose vaccine vial, it can accidentally bring germs from the outside into it. Infection of vaccines will lead to local reactions, more serious illnesses or even death.

In the preparation of vaccines for children: thimerosal ensures the purity of the production process. It will then be removed almost completely.

Is thimerosal safe or not?

Experts have shown that thimerosal is very safe as a preservative in vaccines. Results from various research sources show that in very small doses in vaccines, thimerosal is completely harmless to humans.

Thimerosal does not accumulate in the human body

Thimerosal will be easily eliminated from our body in a short time. Therefore, it will not have the conditions to accumulate to a level that could be harmful to humans.

Thimerosal in vaccines is completely unrelated to autism

Numerous scientific studies have shown that thimerosal in infant vaccines does not cause or contribute to the onset of autism . In other words, the link between thimerosal in vaccines and the disease does not exist. In fact, after thimerosal is no longer used in childhood vaccines, the incidence of autistic children continues to increase - contrary to the original assumption.

Thimerosal of course will have side effects, but not significantly

Why has thimerosal been excluded from the composition of the infant vaccine?

Although there is no evidence that thimerosal in vaccines harms or causes autism, as a precaution, scientists still remove this compound from most childhood vaccines. was small in 1999 because of concerns about a child possibly becoming contaminated with mercury from an early age. This decision is plausible because infant vaccines can be modified without the use of thimerosal while maintaining the same safety, effectiveness and purity. Today, there are almost no vaccines for children containing thimerosal anymore, with the exception of some formulations of the multi-dose flu vaccine.

Without thimerosal, how are childhood vaccines stored today?

Thimerosal-preserved infant vaccines are now being produced in single-dose vials. This means that a preservative will not be needed, as only multi-dose vaccines are susceptible to infection because the needle used to draw the vaccine is capable of carrying the microorganisms from the outside into the vial.