Mercury is a well-known neurotoxin

There is really no debate about whether or not mercury is a neurotoxin.

Thimerosal, a widely used vaccine preservative, is 49 percent mercury, by volume. It is present in many vaccines used in the U.S., including most seasonal flu vaccines. But a few million doses of thimerosal-free influenza vaccine are manufactured for infants and pregnant women. If you are pregnant or have an infant and insist on getting a flu shot, be aware that you may have to specifically request the thimerosal-free, single-vial version, as many health practitioners and pharmacists are still clueless about the associated health risks. Some practitioners do not even know that thimerosal is a mercury derivative.

A typical dose of flu vaccine contains 25 mcg thimerosal. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the safe limit for human exposure to mercury is 0.1 mcg per kilo of weight, per day. Since almost half of the thimerosal is mercury, this means that each flu shot contains just over 12 mcg of mercury, which would be considered unsafe for anyone weighing less than 120 kilos, or just under 265 pounds.

There is really no debate about whether or not mercury is a neurotoxin. It is a well-established fact that it is and that mercury is particularly damaging to young, developing brains. This is one of the core concerns about vaccines. If it is unsafe to breathe or ingest mercury, why would it suddenly become harmless when injected, bypassing your body’s detoxification pathways? If anything, the damage would be far more profound.

Yearly, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and medical trade associations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urge pregnant women and young children to get flu shots because, they say, pregnant women and young children are “particularly at risk” for flu complications and death. However, the statistics simply do not support this recommendation. Neither does the science.

Unfortunately, many obstetricians and pediatricians recommend the flu vaccine to their pregnant patients because they simply do not know better. It is a lot easier to blindly trust and follow the recommendations without verification. But the link between inflammatory cytokine production during pregnancy and subsequent problems in infants and young children is well documented in well-respected medical journals and is already broadly accepted within the field of neuroscience.

Source: www.mercola.com November 2, 2011.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 30, Number 6, December 2011/January 2012.