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Proposed Mercury Ban Threatens Vaccines
T Murphy writes "Although in the draft stages, a treaty being pushed by the United Nations Environment Programme has a blanket ban on mercury. While the ban would stop the use of mercury in paints or pesticides, it currently has no exemptions to allow for other small uses, such as in thermisol, which is used as a preservative in vaccines. The next meeting to discuss this treaty will be at the end of October."
Does anyone really believe that the final draft would include a total ban, even for vaccines? I didn't think so. Sounds like more hype than fact, and an article for the sake of having an article on the part of the Chicago Tribune.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Last I read it was being phased out in favor of other preservatives that lacked mercury.
Once this ban passes, then all new diagnoses of autism should stop, right?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
And this is what happens when actions are taken using feelings and opinions vs science and facts...
Mercury has been phased out of most vaccines. This was done in the late 1990s in response to concerns that the mercury was somehow causing autism in children. Note that this had no impact on autism rates so the anti-vaxxers then switched to talking about ambiguous toxins. Thiomersol is still used in some vaccines but it is only a small fraction of vaccines, such as some versions of the flu vaccine. If necessary that can be easily replaced. It would be stupid because the mercury levels are tiny but it wouldn't have much of an impact. I'm more concerned that this sort of blanket ban would inadvertently impact smaller uses where mercury is really necessary for specialized uses in other areas. The ban also doesn't seem to address the differences between organic and inorganic mercury which have wildly different chemical properties in practice.
It's not Thermisol, that's a brand of isolation products. It's called Thiomersal or Thimerosal.
To summarize: A draft treaty (with only 2 of 5 planned meetings to draft the treaty having been completed) and not expected to become final for 2 years, is not complete. Is there any reason to believe that the exception for vaccine preservatives won't be present in the final treaty?
Just got my flu shot yesterday, and this year they were using thimerosol-free shots exclusively, whereas in past years I had to specifically ask for one. I'm sure there would be other vax that need it, but reducing it's use whenever possible is a step in the right direction.
But Thiomerasal is non-bio accumulative!
Why would you not leave it the fuck alone.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I've worked at a vaccines manufacturing site for a dozen years now and have helped produce hundreds of millions of doses of pediatric vaccines - I've never seen a milligram of thimerosal at our plant or any other in our supply chain. Most current technology manufacturing plants stopped using it decades ago and this really is only an issue for old facilities making old vaccines that they can't relicense using new technology.
Technologies like single dose syringes and barrier/isolator filling lines have made preservatives largely unnecessary and even for those that still use them, there are better choices like EDTA.
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
The only vaccine that still had mercury in it was the flu shots, which are utterly useless anyway. There are much safer alternatives.
No it doesn't. Scientific study after scientific study has proven it doesn't.
Even the first doctor who said there was a link has admitted he faked his data for monetary gain from a lawsuit.
Unfortunately some people still hold onto this old belief- just like people still believe sugar makes kids get hyper... which has been proven not to be true (blood sugar is regulated unless you have diabetes or other such disease).
It's an old wives tale nothing more. Vaccines do not cause autism.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I meant to say Thimerosal, but I guess they are the same thing. Nevermind
I'm assuming you're trolling as an AC, but the amount of mercury is less than what you get from eating fish.
One guy did one study trying to link rising autism rates to vaccines, but he was getting paid to fake his research, which he has since admitted. There has never once been any evidence this is true. But sadly, since people listen to this BS, small pox, polio and other diseases are starting to come back. So maybe you think you're having a laugh. But if contributing to spread such obvious lies leads to one more kid getting polio, then I fucking hope you get crotch rot.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Does this mean that CFL bulbs will be banned as well? We've already banned incandescent lights in many places. If CFL bulbs get banned, what's left? LED? If you can find and afford them I guess.
Time to break out the whale oil lantern I guess.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
By banning mercury half of world would lose dentist care. Hint what do you think amalgam is.
We had to get one from the black market because these electric ones are inaccurate.
First they demoted Pluto, and now they want to ban Mercury
What about the loss of jobs at Ford plants?
Easy, they can just break a bunch of CFL bulbs and capture the Hg from there. What's that enviro-hipster, you didn't know that you were putting mercury in the landfill when you trashed your "green" lightbulbs?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Unfortunately saying the United Nations has become a useless body is an incorrect statement. The United Nations has become a harmful body that is being used as a puppet for ridiculous ideas. The entire thing should be disbanded.
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Given that thimerosal (thiomersal) vaccine formulations are time-tested and, by now, relatively affordable to produce, a ban on thimerosal would probably most hurt poor nations. Here in the US we don't use it much, despite the fact that it has been demonstrated time and again to be relatively safe, but in poorer nations thimerosal formulations may be able to be produced more cheaply than alternatives and can be stored and distributed more easily, especially in/to more remote areas. The US and Europe will likely be unaffected, but if vaccines become more expensive or harder to get or simply less stable in poorer storage conditions in poorer nations, we could see increases in diseases which might otherwise be at least partially under control. If the UN is to include any conditions or exclusions for medical purposes, they should favor improving health in the poorer nations and not putting ideology above the needs of the citizenry.
No, this law would not threaten vaccines it would help them immensely.
Mercury is only used as a preservative in vaccines, they can make them without it (either on the spot for use right away [most vaccines are used on mass in a short period of time anyways] or with a safer preservative).
The mercury is basically the entire reason for all the anti vaccine stuff in the first place, this would solve all of that and also have the benefit of keeping tons and tons of mercury out of the already saturated bodies of the public.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Some vaccines contain thiomersal, a compound of mercury. And in such miniscule amounts it doesn't harm anyone beyond some localized redness. Many vaccines are phasing it out, not because it causes harm but because it's talking point for antivaxxer loons. Of course when thiomersal goes these loons will be screeching about the miniscule traces of formaldehyde or detergents that vaccines also contain.
I conducted an experiment on this very topic at my 3 year nephew’s birthday party. After administering the sugar he went nuts. I didn’t use a very large sample set but the results were fairly conclusive none the less.
Is it you, Dr Bob?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
There is no safe amount of mercury exposure. It is a potent neurotoxin. This is a great treaty and I hope it succeeds. We're smart enough to find other ways of accomplishing what we need. Under pressure from autism-related claims, it was replaced by something safer in vaccines. Digital thermometers take temperature without using mercury. Fluorescent lights will soon be replaced with LEDs.
There's a lot of crazy people in the world. Every little thing we can do to remove neurotoxins from the environment is a good step.
Next: do the same thing with lead. I'm sick of seeing it in all my christmas light plastics.
...the end of Queen music?
It's evil, it must be banned, period. These are idealist politicians we're talking about, reality need not apply.
It's just like the landmine ban, no exceptions, even for cases when the reasons for the ban don't apply (which is the reason the US didn't sign).
There are 2 types of mercury that relate to this discussion. Methylmecury is toxic, but is NOT used in vaccines. It accumulates in the organs and each exposure increases your risk of toxicity.
Ethylmecury (or organic mercury) is eliminated very quickly by the body and does NOT accumulate in the organs. Exposure is limited to incidence, not lifetime. This is the kind used as a preservative in vaccines as thimerisol.
We just removed regulations preventing cement factories from spewing mercury into the air, I doubt this congres will let the UN attack the "job creators" profits.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This is brilliant following on the US ban on incandescent light bulbs given all the CFLs contain mercury. Guess we'll all be pushed to buying the massively expensive LED alternatives next.
I mean, we were just now forced to buy mercury laden light bulbs. Suppose to save me a bajillion dollars over ten years...
I've been involved in a lot of research regarding many persistent diseases and the poorly understood pathogens that cause them. I won't go deeply into the whole debate here but suffice it to say that no amount of mercury, regardless of form, is good for the body. While the whole "Vaccines just cause autism" thing isn't accurate either, realize that the vast majority of studies that try to say that the forms of mercury used in vaccines is safe, are paid for by industries that find it the cheapest thing to use as a stabilizer. I've personally cared for and turned around patients with many conditions from supposed "autism" and "MS", fibroymalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, by finding the real cause of their illness (these conditions are all real, but they are SYMPTOMS the same way "chest pain" is not a complete diagnosis) and sometimes that has involved vaccines, heavy metal exposure at amounts normally thought to be safe, and a variety of other facets that are dismissed by the powers that be due to hubris or financial graft.
Suffice it to say for a totally healthy individual vaccines themselves are not bad, but many of the impurities, stabilizers, and components that have little to do with the vaccine itself can cause reactions, including latent reactions or add to a cumulative issue. From mercury derivatives to allergens to preservatives, most are included because of cost and shelf life - cutting a few cents here and there or making something shelf stable for 5 years instead of two. Patients should have the option to select for vaccines without these cost-cutting adulterants, but because of corporate greed and their vehement and unethical protest that these ingredients are safe, they don't even create alternate variants. Its important to note that because of patents that shouldn't exist in the first place, this also stops 3rd party labs from compounding safer versions.
There is nothing wrong with this ban - if it forces others to adapt and make safer vaccines then its a great benefit. Unfortunately, I'm worried that the usual bureaucratic nightmare will occur, the right palms will be greased, and exceptions will be made. Write your representatives supporting this ban and/or get involved with advocacy groups like the Organic Consumers Association. There is absolutely no threat by this ban save to the pockets of the greedy and unethical and its passage will go a long way toward less environmental toxins in many facets of industry.
Would he have gone nuts anyway because it was a party? Did he go nuts because he has been conditioned (even unconsciously) by adults that candy == go nuts? Did you control by giving artificially sweetened candy to other children at the party? (Even better would be a third group with no candy.)
I think you have failed to eliminate a vast array of confounding factors in your experiment. Not worthy of publication. :)
While everybody has latched on to the use of mercury in some vaccines, what about the mercury amalgam used in most dental work? Like the vaccine mercury, it is not harmful to the patient, but it would be difficult to make amalgam fillings with out it.
What about CFLs and other fluorescent lightbulbs?
There is no government in the world that could possibly introduce legislation that says "ban mercury" without details, caveats and exemptions. That would be like saying "ban dihydrogen monoxide".
Let's look at the RoHS legislation, for example. RoHS says that lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, mercury, PBBs and PBDEs are restricted. But RoHS has - and it needs to have - a list of exemptions as long as your arm. For example, suppose you have a solar cell based on cadmium telluride or a light-dependent resistor based on cadmium sulfide or a piezoelectric transducer based on lead zirconate titanate. These technologies have no realistic lead-free or cadmium-free replacements, so they're exempted from RoHS.
They don't just say "these elements are banned, period"... that would not be realistic at all.
Look at the Montreal protocol, for example - it certainly does not just say "CFCs are banned, period."
If we said "Mercury is banned in manmade technology, period", that would mean banning mercury-vapor discharge ultraviolet lamps used to erase EPROMs, for tanning, and for sterilisation in medical facilities and microbiology laboratories. It would ban essentially all fluorescent lightbulbs.
It would ban all high-pressure sodium lamps and the like that contain mercury.
It would ban all coal-fired power generation, since this is responsible for by far the largest share of man-made mercury emission into the environment. And presumably it would ban tuna products, too.
It would ban the use of thiomersal as a bacteriostatic preservative in mascara, eyedrops, contact lens solution, antivenoms, immunoglobulins and other drugs, not just vaccines (most vaccines don't even contain thiomersal, anyway.)
It would ban the use of mercuric acetate and aluminium amalgam, etc, as catalysts and chemical reagents, both in industry and in the research laboratory.
It would ban the use of mercury standards for mercury analysis by analytical technologies such as atomic absorption spectroscopy. It would ban the use of mercury compounds for calibration of NMR spectrometers for Hg-199 NMR.
It would ban all use of HgCdTe and HgZnTe in infrared detectors for IR spectroscopy, IR astronomy, various types of sensors, FLIR imagers, night vision, military technologies and so forth.
Obviously it's nonsense.
The editors still have not bothered to fix 'thermisol' in the summary - and it is even spelled correctly (thiomersal, or thimerosal) in the newspaper article....
just like the superconductors/semiconductors fiasco yesterday.
How can you believe you are intelligently discussing a science-related issue when you cannot even name the topic correctly?
The good news is that the UN has no legal authority whatsoever over any country in the world. Sometimes the UN fights a war, but that is just cover for the country (usually the US) doing the actual fighting. The UN cannot pass laws, fight wars, or do anything. It is at best a debating society.
Hate to contradict you since you are generally right on the beam, but *smallpox* is not coming back.
Thimerosal is pretty rare in vaccines. First, it's only used in vials with multiple-doses in it, so that eliminates a fair chunk already. DTaP & Tdap, polio, MMR, Hep A, Hep B, rabies, smallpox... No Thimerosal. The only vaccine that you're likely to come in to contact that MAY have some of the preservative is some seasonal influenza vaccines. Even then, a Thimerosal-free version is often available.
Find a list of vaccines and their Thimerosal content and history here: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228
I'm assuming the case is similar in the EU. As previously stated by others, the concern shouldn't be over vaccines but just about everything else. There're so many Hg sources and uses that a total ban is bullshit.
Does this mean that Hollywood will have to find a replacement for mercury switches in movie plots that include mad bombers?
Also by administering the sugar did you then start to notice his "nuts" behaviour when previously you weren't looking for it?
It's very important to blind (and double blind) studies to remove our biases. A better experiment would have been to prepare some sugary and sugar free candy, have an assistant randomly distribute them between the children (and keep track of which children get which candy). Only once you've rated the behaviour of the children do you find out what candy they were given.
I've seen that argument when people complain about mercury in vaccines. Oh, it leaves the bloodstream with such and so time. My question is "where does it go". Leaving the blood stream is not the same as leaving the body. Mercury accumulates somewhere else (fatty tissue?). Is there conclusive proof that the mercury in vaccines does not get stored, changed, or in any way contribute to making you dumber? Which you ack that some mercury does. To me it seems a bad idea to use it - there are other preservatives.
So... this means there's going to be a worldwide ban on coal as a fuel source, burning of trash, medical and hazardous waste incinerators, cement production, and CFL bulbs? Good luck with that.
It might not be used in children, but it is used. They were offering free flu shots where I work, and I asked them if it contained Thimerosal. They said yes, I passed, I got the flu (H1N1 season) and now it turns out I may be better off (see articles about H1N1 possibly triggering broad flu immunity). But my point is that it is still used here in the US.
This feels like one of those "dog poop fines" legislative bills. Everyone is for it, and everyone in the end benefits from it. You get to look like a hero legislator without tackling any difficult (or controversial) problems.
Seriously though, how dangerous is Mercury. Before you fire up Wikipedia to tell me about how mercury causes brain damage and birth abnormalities, let me ask you these questions:
1. What are the symptoms of mercury poisoning
2. What is the treatment for acute mercury poisoning
3. Who do you know, or have heard of who has experienced mercury poisoning?
Seriously, can you answer those off the top of your head? What about for poison ivy? Getting sprayed by a skunk? A snake bite.
Those are things that actually happen in real life. Dwight Shrute can tell you how to handle a bear attack depending on the time of day, and I'm sure many astute movie watchers can tell you how to wrestle an alligator/crocodile, but nobody can tell you anything about mercury other than that it's bad for you.
While yes, I'm sure Mercury is very bad for you, I think we've successfully legislated away the problem. Between the mercury in my "silver" fillings (quite a bit! stop googling about how "wrong I am and check out the amount of mercury you ingest via tooth fillings) and the fish I eat, I am a rather healthy individual. I think we've solved the mercury problem.
moox. for a new generation.
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Was the sugar in the form of an energy drink or something else caffeinated?
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No it doesn't.
How about a threat to the poor? Say now we spend $10 million to vaccinate a poor population. Now mercury is banned, we need vaccines that are more expensive to manufacture, and that $10 million will vaccinate fewer people. The "safer" versions have been around for decades, they're just more expensive to make (ten one-use vials vs. one ten-use vial are obviously more expensive to make) and less effective in the field, driving up the cost of vaccination.
Because of your ban, would you like to decide which kids get to die because they weren't vaccinated? Or would you like to pony up the extra manufacturing cost out of your own wallet in order to save them?
So the sugar had no such effect on the vast majority of children to whom it was administered then?
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Mercury isn't plutonium.. Heck I have rolled it around in my hands. True you don't want to breathe Mercury vapors, but things are getting crazy.
Might as well ban O2 because in high enough concentrations that is poisonous.
Stop trying to child-proof the world. We really don't need our hand held by the world treaty enforcers every second of our lives.
At some point things will be so absurdly regulated that there will be poop monitors in every toilet and any deviation from your assigned duties gets one assigned to making soylent green.
I think the ban is on Sodium Chloride - try cooking with Sea salt.
Sea salt is almost entirely Sodium Chloride with just an insignificant portion of shellfish and Potassium Chloride thrown in.
Meanwhile, I'd like a ban on Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) in restaurants
Ok, so you want no meat, no tomatoes, no mushrooms, no cheese, no dairy at all. It sounds like you would like restaurants to serve only black coffee with refined sugar.
Doh! I've been trolled!
I am mistaken from time to time. I'm probably mixing up articles with another disease.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Dr. Bob would have claimed that subluxations are what cause autism. Unless you visit your chiropractor for an adjustment.
Now, yes, I'm sure mercury causes all sorts of subluxations, but let's put the blame where it really belongs here...
P.S. My personal suspicion is that the rise in strange diseases such as autism is really just a sign that humans in general are getting inbred. I'd be very interested to know if anyone's done a study on the rates of them in children from mixed-race families.
So what other fun stuff beside mercury do they
put into vaccines?
How is a random non-medical person supposed to
know how to avoid dangerous vaccines while
allowing safe ones?
Why can't we require coal users to reduce/eliminate
mercury pollution?
I mean how cool would it be to swim in a pool of mercury? The density is 13.5 times that of water and the human body, I think you could stand up in a pool of mercury and it wouldn't even reach your crotch.
the word is shortened : Thio-mercury-salicylate
and I work with it as part of vaccine manufacturing which is what I do. I'd love something else to be discovered that works as well so that we could stop using the stuff. It is seriously toxic.
A mercury ban can't happen soon enough. Amalgam fillings are way worse than any vaccine mercury issues (which as others have pointed out are being phased out). Mercury Does Leak Out of Your Fillings
Since you are throwing out numbers, can you tell me what the original numbers are that you are taking "a fraction" and "20%" of?
I am much more concerned about the impact on cfl's. Hopefully this will not impact theirr manufacture or sale. That is a very baby / bath water approach.
You're being more than a little melodramatic with your phrasing. The costs of making safer vaccines are in the range of pennies. In the particular instance of multi-use vials vs unit dosing, unit dosing is by far a more preferable way to deal with the extremely poor. Sure, per dose its more to have unit dose packaging, but if you think about the huge amounts of money that come from 'deferred" single vials its actually MUCH cheaper in the long run. There was actually a pretty decent WHO report on this not long ago that applies to ALL medicine. Basically, if someone swipes the one giant bottle/vial of vaccine or painkiller than you're out a ton of doses plus you have to deal with the not cost negative effects of black market sales (not just for abuseable substances either. In Africa for instance there's a black market of trading supposedly surplus medical supplies for other goods - of course, they're really stolen etc..).
The mildly increased cost can easily be handled by a variety of options from eliminating drug patents to making laws against these adulterants in medical equipments like some nations have done. You're not lamenting the "extra cost" of making medical supplies that don't include lead, because it has been mandated that keeping lead out of modern medical supplies is just part of manufacturing; the cost is negligible and we're all better for it. Making socially and medically viable regulations and cutting a lot of the red tape + loopholes that corps fulfilling these contracts use to save money at the cost of people's health will make sure that the most healthful drugs and supplies are produced at the lowest price.
There are multitudes of benefits that come from this kind of ban. A few cents difference on a healthful product is far from one of the major issues that organizations face getting the destitute vaccinated.
Will this make it harder for me to horde medical supplies long enough to drive the market price up?
Guys, guys...
Injecting mercury directly into blood is not a good idea, and has never been.
As far as i know, there are alternative which are less problematic. use them.
Don't CFLs use mercury? Does this mean we have to go back to incandescent light bulbs?
Stop vaccinating tuna !!
As someone with an allergy to thimerosal, I can say i am happy to hear this news. Thimerosal is still used in most vaccines, albeit in reduced amounts, and is completely unnecessary since other preservatives are available.
Unless you have candles. Because that's seriously about the only light source that will be left to us, unless LEDs suddenly make a huge technological leap. In the US, congress banned the incandescent light, and a ban on Mercury would eliminate all flourescent lighting (including all the new CFLs). So yeah, back to candles. Government people are such morons.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
They'll just have to come up with another way to make replacement bulbs for CFL lighting...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Sugar free candy isn't really candy though, so it's difficult to do a fair control that way. My nephew might have just gone bleck horrible candy. I was of course half joking before, although his party was real and he did go nuts during it. He lay down on the floor and span in circles after eating cake, something he didn't do even when opening presents. But I can't imagine he would have gone as crazy if we'd just sneaked loads of sugar into his regular food on a quiet day. So I figure it's a myth, but that doesn't necessary change the fact that when you give candy to a kid he's likely to go a bit crazy.
It was a homemade Thomas the Tank Engine cake, powerful stuff.
No it doesn't. It threatens the profit margin of large pharmaceutical corporations that OWN the FDA. You only need thimerisol (49% mercury) as a preservative for multi-dose containers. So why not ship single dose containers? Lets see, we get rid of the rubber gloves, the needle the syringe but we can't ship single dose containers for what reason? Oh yea we don't want to cost corporations with profit margins measured in the 4-5 digit range.
I did, repeatedly. So did you - your link supports my statements. But you are so obsessional or delusional that you've apparently lost the ability to read critically.
Thiomersal (C9H9HgNaO2S) is metabolized or degraded to ethylmercury (C2H5Hg+) and thiosalicylate.
Inorganic mercury metabolized from ethylmercury has a half-life of at least 120 days.
The data says mercury can be found in mammalian tissue for at least 120 days after administration of thiomersal. You have decided, in spite of the available research, to believe otherwise. OK, you've been led to water, but you don't want to drink.
So eat all the mercury you want. Go whip the convict labor in the cinnabar mines and huff the fumes from the roasters. I certainly won't force you to stop. You are clearly deeply committed to mercury ingestion - and that's fine with me. Enjoy!
You are also free to subscribe to Paracelsus' overly broad, mentally limiting paradigm all you want. I still won't stop you. It's a valid way of interpreting the data. I personally subscribe to a more nuanced view, that fits the data better for my purposes, but I don't see any reason to try to browbeat others into accepting my point of view as incontrovertible dogma. Which is another characteristic we apparently don't have in common.
Dr. Bob? Is that you?
Times billions. Who do you propose pay for it?
WHO also says "there is no evidence of toxicity in infants, children or adults exposed to thiomersal (containing ethyl mercury) in vaccines."
What is the incentive to create the drugs anymore then?
That doesn't "handle" the increased cost, it creates the increased cost. Here we are, trying to vaccinate as many kids as possible on a limited budget, and here come people like you trying to make the vaccination more expensive.
There are absolutely none. The ban is just to appease people who cringe at the word "mercury" and believe fraudulent studies.
If you eliminate many of the political and economic structures put in place that do not benefit doctors or patients but only enrich equipment manufacturers and big pharma, this would not be an issue. Look at the bidding a few years back on the contract for flu vaccine nasal mist that went exclusively to Med Immune, who created a couple of contaminated batches causing delay, went with the wrong strain despite being told otherwise which led to it being less effective than it could have been, and basically were allowed to be the sole manufacturer despite tons of fuckups - of course, they built a new building and showed record profits because of the contract awarded to them. We have a system now where the answer to "We need lots of influenza vaccine now!" is "create a drawn out bidding war amongst big companies for exclusive rights to manufacture it", in some cases. End that kind of thinking to save billions.
The WHO is making both correct and incorrect statements - things don't have to be completely black and white.
What was the incentive for Dr. Salk to create the polio vaccine without a patent that exclusively gave himself or a corporate backer the right to manufacture said vaccine? There are many solutions to the issue of R&D funding - I favor a bounty/reward system. It would save billions per year if we paid a "bounty" when private industry developed an otherwise patentable drug or device, which would then enter the public domain. Not unlike the telecoms, there's a huge amount of public money being funneled into private industry in the forms of grants and whatnot, but the results of said development are patented and owned by the private industry themselves. The system we have now is completely corrupt and serves to enrich the few at the cost of the many; its completely unnecessary and we can do much better.
Its so much cheaper to just let industrial runoff flow untreated into a nearby river and makes your "limited budget" go much farther, but does that make it a good idea? The whole reason that budgets are so expensive and money is so limited is due to the polices that allow the pharmaceutical industry to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else. Arguing about the additional cost of making vaccinations without toxic adulterants is like the Republicans yelling about NASA's budget being "Government Waste" while our defense spending for 2.5 wars is completely ignored.
You really can't see the benefits of eliminating not just mercury but a whole host of toxic substances? This is completely divorced from the issue of mercury in and of itself causing autism - I'm not saying that; I agree that it isn't accurate. Developing nations with poor restrictions have become dumping grounds for all sorts of hazardous substances because its cheaper. This ban isn't just about vaccines you understand, but also would keep it from being used in other forms for other uses as well. This is absolutely of paramount importance, forgetting vaccines. Vaccines are simply a wedge issue. I've seen patients who spent their childhood in developing nations and had exposure to heavy metals, organic and inorganic toxins way beyond the average American etc... all a factor in their chronic illness that when treated, gave them more of their life back than they'd ever thought possible. These are often people who have limited access to healthcare and greater exposure to risks of all sorts, so trying to regulate for the safe disposal of toxic materials and limiting both exposure and toxic burden can only benefit. Yes, its often more expensive to do things right than to halfass and harm them, but if you had a child with a compromised HLA-DR4 genotype that didn't allow them to process and excrete certain toxins nearly as well as someone with a different allele I think you'd feel differently.
And of course you think the one about thimerosol being safe is incorrect. You can't cite the WHO as an authoritative source on the subject, and then pick and choose which WHO statements are authoritative.
Whatever any other factors are, we remain with the basic fact that thimerosol is cheap, the alternatives more expensive, whether manufactured by companies or the government itself. So let's say you change our system a bit and save a billion dollars. Would you rather apply that to getting healthcare to more people or apply it to being able to afford vaccines that are now more expensive to manufacture and deliver due to a mercury ban?
The incentive then was to cure the disease, and he had some funding. He also had a lot of volunteer help throughout the country and a relatively simple regulatory process. Today, the effort would cost billions, take decades, and expose Salk to numerous lawsuits.
There's a question for you. If your procedure is under the auspices of government, who do people sue in the case of wrongdoing? Sovereign immunity.
We already have a reward-result system, where we pay universities to research things. Unfortunately, they now get to patent what was developed on the taxpayers' time. I do agree that patenting needs to stop. But would you prevent companies from coming up with cures on their own?
And that issue is completely divorced from the issue of mercury in vaccines, since it is safe. There is no reason to prohibit something that is safe and cheap. You're trying to make life-saving ventures more expensive just to satisfy irrational fears. You're going all over the map with tangents to try to get away from this basic fact.