Thimerosal in swine flu vac-how much is there exactly ?

[Lakesandsnadders]

I'd love to hear from anybody who has a good understanding of this-I am not a scientist!

My question is-does any body know the exact amount in the pandemrix jab and what proportion it makes up of the recommended safe levels are for children to receive overall? Also-I understand that the body excretes ethylmercury-how does this work and how much is stored permamently in the body? Sorry-may have got facts confused here.

Also-I am correct in believing that thimerosal has been removed from all other childhood immunisations since 2002?

I appreciate that some people may regard it as unsafe in any amount and that there are all sorts of other nasties in the jabs my kids have already had ( be economical with detail please!) but I'd welcome a scientific explanantion to help me decide whether or not to give DD the SF jab.

Thanks very much

OOoh, fun thing to work out.
This site says that each dose of pandemrix will have 5 mcg of thiomersal (and 10.7 mg of squalene, if you want to worry about that).

As far as I recall, thiomersal went out completely in all other UK paediatric vax in 2004, when the new polio/5 in one combo vacc came in (ancient relevent NHS info sheet).

The last NHS safety sheet also talks about recommended daily limits (US EPA) of methylmercury of 0.1-0.47 mcg/kg of body weight. Using the 0.1 mcg/kg weight, we arrive at 10 kg child = 1 mcg/day, or 20 kg child = 2 mcg/day. However, thiomersal breaks down to ethylmercury, which is removed from the body much more quickly than the more scary methyl-mercury, so perhaps should have much higher "tolerable" limits.

This 2008 study found that little babies got rid of about half of the ethyl-mercury they were exposed to in an average of < 4 days (so pretty quickly).

I guess it works out that pandemrix would deliver a dose of mercury to my 12 kg weight toddler that was up to 4x what the guidelines suggest is tolerable, but it would be mostly out of his system within a week, so as a one-off exposure, I might think that's a risk worth taking.

IIRC the daily limits refer to mercury ingested from food etc., and to the more dangerous stuff rather than this ethyl mercury. They are also set well below the level actually deemed to be unsafe.

Forgive me for not going back and re-reading the studies now, but I went right into it last month when I had the vaccine myself when I was 3 months pregnant. I was satisfied that as a one off dose, which would be broken down very quickly, it was a risk worth taking.

WRT my 3 year old my main concern is overloading him with vaccines, as he only just had his MMR booster plus the gazillions of other things that go with it. I'm satisfied that the risk from thiomersal is pretty miniscule.

I don't know of any research offhand. I think the point is that it is the thiomersal that allows the actual dose of swine flu to be both inactive and minimal. Otherwise you'd be looking at a live vaccine - which as a pregnancy woman I wouldn't personally have had.

The levels really are so miniscule I don't think it's worth worrying over. I really don't.

This is the leaflet I read which put my own mind at rest. The leaflet is talking mostly about vaccines containing 25mcg of thiomersal. This one has only 5mcg.

I wonder what a pregnancy woman is?

you could look at it fairly simply.

thimerosal was taken out of all baby jabs for a reason. it would have been fairly costly for the manufacturers to do, but they did it.

if it isn't safe for children in their baby jabs, then it isn't suddenly safe for them in this.

afaik there is no research into safe limits of injected mercury, the only limits they've been able to test is injested.

i think i read that in the truth about vaccines

Sorry I got that wrong. The leaflet is mostly talking about vaccines with 50mcg of thiomersal and correspondingly a 25mcg mercury content. Therefore the level in the swine flu vaccine is 10 times lower than in each one of the childood vaccines that we all had.

I think there is such a thing as far too much information. We all read too much and think too much, and just occasionally I think we should put our trust in the professionals whose job it is to look after our and our children's health. My doctor had no concerns about giving me the vaccine whatsoever and, rightly or wrongly, I trust her.

Well as I said I had also done my own research. I checked before having it that she had had the vaccine herself - which she had, as had the whole (albeit) small practice. At the end of the day she's a professional and I'm not. And I concluded there was a greater risk to my baby from me contracting swine flu than from having the vaccine.

As I said ,for my 3 year old I'm not so sure, but you can be sure it isn't the thiomersal content that's the main factor for me. As I said before we've all received at least 30 times this dose in our own childhoods. I personally think it's getting way out of perspective. Don't forget that 80% of the children who have been hospitalised with swine flu had no underlying health conditions. That is more significant for me than any miniscule theoretical risk.

Do we know exactly how the 53% is made up? Doctors, or auxiliary nurses? I am frankly amazed that any healthy adult, who doesn't have a foetus to worry about, would be so precious about this.

Well it's a fat lot of good putting the wind up me now isn't it! Anyhow apart from a sore arm for 2 days I've had no ill effects and I am not even contemplating any possible theoretical effect on the baby now that I've taken the decision and had the damned thing.

As for DS, I don't know. By the time this snow goes it'll probably be the end of the month before we can get him there to have it, by which time there isn't that much left of the flu season. And I understand that a fresh vaccine would be required for next year? I'm not entirely sure what the reasoning is behind vaccinating all under 5's. I know I quoted the 80% statistic earlier, but as you say the risks of complications are still very very low.

I had to have the vaccine for my own sanity in the end because I was getting scared of going on public transport or anywhere with lots of people in case someone coughed or sneezed swine flu onto me. That's when I realised I was more worried about the risk of complications in pregnancy than of the vaccine, but that didn't happen until I had gone past 12 weeks.

I think once I'd made the agonising decision to give DS the MMR vaccine I vowed never to go into things in so much depth again. It nearly sent me mad. I do understand all about relative risks etc. and I guess I'll look into that a bit more. I know that overall the death rate from swine flu is about hundred times lower than from seasonal flu, which is interesting given all the hype. I also doubt the statistics on swine flu occurrence given that it seems in England that anyone with a slight sniffle gets Tamiflu! (Not the same in Scotland I might add, which is probably why SF incidence seems to be much lower).

We do also have to consider our distance from healthcare and the problems we may have with inaccessibility in an emergency. We're 20 miles from the doctors and 15 miles from A&E and currently very snowed in. Short of the air ambulance I'm not sure what we'd do if DH or DS (or apparently me!) contracted swine flu and developed complications. God, it's a minefield. Sometimes I hate being a parent!

Erm, afraid not - don't you believe it. All pregnant women are being given Pandemrix unless they're allergic to eggs. It seems no one is trusted to go for the follow up . But when I looked into Celvapan with a view to insisting, I found just as many reasons to be worried about that. The dose of mercury in the swine flu vaccine really is so small that I felt on balance that it was a risk worth taking. My main worry, as it happens, was that I would get an overactive immune response that could harm the baby. There are so many nasties out there that we'd go mad worrying about them all.

I weighed up the information I had at the time and made the best decision I could as an educated person who did science A levels (a long time ago). Neither of the vaccines are licensed for use in pregnant women as they can't be tested on them, for obvious reasons. I read everything I could get my hands on, including the product information leaflet which is available (somewhere) online.

I take your point that you can't compare ingested mercury with injected mercury, but equally with ingested mercury they are talking about the methyl-mercury variety which is supposed to be far more harmful. If the safe limit of ingested methyl-mercury is supposed to be 0.47mcg per day - which is believed to be 10 times lower than the actual safe limit - and they are talking about a mercury that accumulates, then I figured that one single dose at just about the actual daily safe limit that doesn't accumulate should be OK, albeit injected. [I'll be having to have anti-D at some point probably, since I'm Rh-, and I haven't even begun to look into what might be in that. I refused it in my last pregnancy - not sure I can in this one, will depend on antibody levels.]

At the end of the day is was an impossible decision to be faced with, quite frankly.

Anyhow, I absolutely must go to bed now and try to not to start worrying about this whole thing again. Not your fault - I should never have clicked on the blardy thread to begin with. What's done is done. And it'd be pretty terrible of me to refuse the vaccine for my 3 year old because of mercury when I've just inflicted it on my unborn child! I may yet refuse for different reasons however.

Still here (but not for long!). I suppose it's all about ethics. Who's going to willingly submit their child/foetus to have varying amounts of mercury injected to test if it's safe? I do think that the fact that we all had vaccines containing much more mercury is probably a reasonable indicator that the low levels in this one are probably safe, at least for children and adults.

I still say I think there's probably too much information available. You obviously know your stuff and must think I'm a bit of a numpty, but I'd say I'm pretty well educated compared with many. Either they issue a distilled information leaflet, like the Swine Flu and Pregnancy one, which we all dismiss as Govt propaganda, or all the raw information is made available to be misinterpreted by those who know a little about it and to confuse everyone else. I'm not sure which is best really.

One more thing. What exactly is the risk of low levels of mercury supposed to be for the developing foetus, or child for that matter? I gather it must be to do with brain development but it's remarkably difficult to find information about this.

Sooty asked:
"Do you know if those recommended daily limits refer to digested mercury or injected mercury?"

It's pretty easy to absorb mercury by inhaling or even thru skin (read here). Most modern exposure is via air from coal burning. So I would assume those limits I found earlier refer to all forms of exposure -- but for methylmercury only, not the relatively safer ethylmercury. Immune system defenses, btw, don't count for much where heavy metal exposure is concerned.

..."how did they come to the upper limit conclusion?"

I am not going to dive into it, but I'm guessing it's an observational thing -- people exposed to X much mercury (per kg/day) don't show any signs of ill health. At some point there is a safe exposure level.

"...what happened once they surpassed the upper limit?"

I guess if you believe some sources there can be very subtle effects at relatively low exposure, especially on the genetically vulnerable. Credible research on just those hypothetically extra vulnerable subgroups doesn't exist. Otherwise, This kid's page, US EPA and Wikipedia entry on general Mercury poisoning are good. Basically, it's a full system poison, kidneys particularly at risk, neurological impacts in fetuses and young children at high enough dosage, especially if prolonged.

Minamata is the most infamous case of mass poisoning. There are still new studies going on of the survivors and their descendents.