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news article by Terence Kealey from Newsweek, talks about how if the public confidence in
vaccinations were to drop, vaccine rates would go down and in turn immunity levels would fall,
and “epidemics of preventable yet dangerous diseases will recur.” Garrett reiterates this same
point by saying that “millions of lives are at stake” if in fact, Trump pushes out the idea that vaccines
cause autism. Both sources confirm President Trump meeting with both Andrew Wakefield
and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This information is reliable, but slightly bias because it is an opinion
article from one person, defending a claim. The goal of the source is to educate the reader about
Donald Trump’s stance on the topic.
This source fits into my research by establishing the exigence, or importance that the topic still
holds. It is helpful because all of my other sources are back from the early 2000’s, and earlier,
so this brings a more up to date look on the topic. This may shape my argument from MMR
vaccines not causing autism to an approach where I may look at what the effect of making this
vaccine unavailable would be.
Gottlieb, Scott. “Thimerosal in Vaccines.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Accessed 14 Mar. 2017.
In Thimerosal in Vaccines published on the FDA website, it makes many claims about the uses
of thimerosal as a preservative, the history, the toxicity of the substance, recent and future FDA
actions, as well as the safety review of thimerosal in vaccines conducted by the Institute of Medicine.
Thimerosal is one of the most used preservative in a number of biological and drug products,
including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening, and is approximately
50% mercury. As a preservative, it kills or prevents the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria
and fungi. Thimerosal in concentrations of 0.001% to 0.01% has been show effective at clearing
a broad spectrum of pathogens. The US Code of Federal Regulations requires a preservative
in multi dose vials of vaccines as tragic consequences have been felt when multi dose vials contained
no preservatives. The FDA Modernization Act of 1997 led to a list compiled by the FDA
of regulated products containing mercury or thimerosal. The list changed as some products were
no longer manufactured, and others were reformulated to contain no thimerosal. The National
Vaccine Advisory Committee sponsored meeting on thimerosal in 1999 brought concerns of the
ability of infants to expel the mercury from regular vaccinations. Blood studies at the University
of Rochester and National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda determined that the levels did not
exceed the safety guidelines for methylmercury for all of the infants that were in the study.
May 31, 2017 TIME 39