Talk:Thiomersal and vaccines

First remarks

This is Ombudsman's, he wanted it in the anti-vaccinationist article. Midgley 01:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

"An example involves the debate over the the removal of mercury from thimerosal containing vaccines (TCVs). Recently, but largely in the United States, it has been suggested that thimerosal in childhood vaccines could contribute to autism or the autism epidemic. This debate has escalated due to recent research indicating the chance that some individuals are less able to excrete heavy metals normally, and reports that the type of organic mercury used may be more toxic than other types for which exposure limits have been set. Government agencies and pharmaceutical companies clearly have an interest in denying this, and there are potentially gains for litigants if a connection can be shown in court."

" TCVs are being phased out, although some TCVs (e.g., flu vaccines) are still routinely administered to children, as well as pregnant women and nursing mothers. Vaccines in use in the UK are largely free of it. There is no suggestion that it is required for the immunogenic effect of the preparations, therefore it is thought that TCVs will eventually discontinued entirely." " In 2004, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel favoured rejecting any causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. However, critics allege that the statistical evidence upon which the IOM based its conclusions has been difficult to independendently analyze, due in part the fact that access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink database has been restricted due to privacy concerns, and possibly because of the alleged secrecy surrounding the proceedings of the 2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference. " This is spreading out into yet another article that already exists and is reference from teh Thiomersal contro one. Midgley 01:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

not in use in USA?

CDC Director, Dr Julie Gerberding: ... looking for an association between thimerosal and autism in a prospective sense is just about impossible to do right now because we don't have those vaccines in use in this country. Midgley 06:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Go look on the FDA web site- u will find a list of vaccines that do indeed contain mercury, one is the tetnus injection. They are bing phased out.. i think another is the new bird flu vaccine.Cilstr 10:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

"In recent years"

Surely someone can do better than that for line one? how about since {date}...

The article should perhaps bring out who said it first, do we not think? Midgley 12:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The opening section

Is not very good. Part of the problem is the buzz phrase "straight into the tissues". How do the the other participants in this stimulating discussion of a controversial artilc efeel about reducing that to a note that the suggestion is that Thimerosal produces mercury poisoning which produces autism etc? Midgley 23:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I noticed this evening that some citations in the very first paragraph were missing. I inserted these references, though admittedly they may not be the best. Better than nothnig certainly. Tony Stein 07:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

New thirmerosal study

This month saw another publication (this time in the Medical Science Monitor) of another assessment finding (claiming) neurodevelopment disorders are coming down in line with the withdraw of thimerosal.(it's by the Geier's again) [http://www.usautism.org/PDF_files_newsletters /geiers_%20downward_trends_in_nds1.pdf] or [1]. Haven't really read it well enough yet to know whether its worth quoting from, so I will stick here in case any body else has the time. Gosh! June already; where does the time go?--Aspro 19:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

another study presented recently as well: [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.1.34.199 (talk) 23:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

That one is already covered; see the recent change. Eubulides (talk) 23:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

State of the Controversy section: poor

Its present state does not suggest a high quality process might have produced it. Midgley 14:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

(Biting my tongue, trying to avoid a sarcastic remark). It's fine, Midgley, and better than any three sentences in Anti-vaccinationist. It outlines the issue, has references, and - apart from a few sentences in the end - written in good prose. I know the facts in this matter bother you to no end, but I really can't help that. --Leifern 16:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Then we agree that the few sentences near the end need cleaning up. Midgley 16:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Legal aspect

Sorry I did not cite when I first made this contribution. The info comes from the July 2006 of the American Bar Association Journal (page 12). Article discusses the legal aspects of this preservative. Sorry for the initial lack of citation. Also, sorry I did not insert this comment in the normal place - Wikipedia is telling me that a spam filter is preventing me from posting this comment. SOmething about tiny.url.com ??? Anyway, FYI. Thanks! Bundas 13:58, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I came to the page by accident and I know the subject is controversial but... I edited the legal section to replace most of the uses of 'vaccine court' by USCFC. While the repetition of 'so called...' sounds like an NPOV speech, I'm not trying to correct POV here, just grammar. However, looking at 'often referred to as "vaccine court"'. Google only has 742 references to that phrase, several of them on this page. USCFC gets 14,000 references. For comparison, choosing another US legal nickname - 'Scalito' has 203,000 references. Should maybe just be 'sometimes' rather than 'often'? - Bazzargh 00:11, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It is not most obviously related to "the thiomersal controversy" though, but rather to one or more other articles. Better to name it here, and leave the interested reader, or readers, to look up the detail of where some legal cases are to be held and how that came about in a more particular article.

"In 1986, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act established a no-fault system for litigating claims against vaccine manufacturers. Under this law, all claims against Vaccine manufacturers could not be heard in state or federal court, but had to be heard rather in the U.S Court of Federal Claims. This court, often referred to as the “vaccine court,” hears cases without juries and awards damages that typically are far below damage awards rendered in other courts. The damage amounts are often insufficient to compensate severely injured children."

Could usefully shrink to no more than "Under the no-fault system established by the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act claims against Vaccine[sic] manufacturers have to be heard in the U.S Court of Federal Claims"

It appears that "occasionally called "the vaccine court" " might fit in, but is it necessary?Midgley 20:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Undue weight

The article is interesting in a way, but it gives undue weight to the views of the people believing in a link between autism and thiomersal (this is reflected in the reference section). Also, it fails to mentioned the number of large scale international studies that failed to show a link. The article needs a cleanup, to make it more clear that a thiomersal/autism link is very much the minority position in the medicial/scientific community, and that it's mostly held by people with no, or little, peer-reviewed work in the field. --Kristjan Wager 19:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It is not our job to count votes in this fabled "medical/scientific community" and then assign weight based on such a count. This is an article about the controversy - there's a separate article on thimerosal. Please add citations to the "large scale international studies" that fail to show the link. In the meantime, the evidence for a link is pretty overwhelming, but there are some pretty good reasons why it isn't showcased, i.e., a massive public failure of confidence in vaccinations specifically and other public health programs more generally. --Leifern 20:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

There have been at least five large epidemiological studies conducted since 2001 (in the UK, US, Sweden and Denmark). All of these found no link. They are refered to in this 2004 IOM Report ( summarized here). As to the idea that we shouldn't count votes, I think it would be worthwhile for you to read the wikipedia policy of a neutral point of view. You should especially notice the part about not giving undue weight.

As I stated before, this article gives undue weight to the people who believes in a thiomersal-autism link, especially considered with the wight give to the mainstream researchers. I suggest we fix this somehow. --Kristjan Wager 21:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Have to agree with the undue weight. 1000 sites on poor evidence are no better than 1 site based on the same poor evidence. Scientific American recently noted that autism rates continues to rise in countries where thimersol containing vaccines have been banned-evidence that, at the very least, some other factor is partially responsible for autism.

"... may have, over time, exceeded federal guidelines for bolus (single-dose) mercury exposure, based on methylmercury (but not ethylmercury) studies." That needs work, what is the relevance of the comparison between chronic and bolus? Midgley 21:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's restrain the invisible hand from guiding this debate, shall we? The whole point is, this is controversial. Let the mud slinging continue; that's how we'll make incremental progress towards the goal. Why anyone would accept anyone else's redaction of a controversial perspective I have no idea; this smacks of an attempt to neutralize the debate. Tony Stein 06:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

== Anybody noticed this article? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16870260&query_hl=8&itool=pubmed_docsum

It could be referred to to add credibility. 193.141.244.42 08:40, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

let's get the name of the preservative spelled right

There are at least two misspellings of thimerosal here and throughout.

there are multiple accepted spellings.Geni 02:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

The correct - RINN - spelling however is Thiomersal. Midgley 17:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

A hearing is expected in June 2007.

did this ever happen?

216.97.171.219

Article needs cleanup

It appears that this article needs a lot of work. Redundant references, references that point to dead links, paragraphs that would be more appropriate in other sections, poor prose, and most importantly, what appears to be undue weight given to the view that there exists a causative link between autism and thiomersal given its minority status in the medical/scientific field. Yobol 18:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I hope nobody minds, because I basically re-wrote the article, as trying to fix minor things was not going to work with the amount of hodge-podging there was in the article. I basically re-worked the prose, made the references manageable (as opposed to dead links to .pdfs on 3rd party website), rearranged some sections for better flow, and added lots more information for better NPOV. Probably lots more work to be done, but I think that's enough for now.Yobol 13:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Thompson et al. 2007 is overemphasized / Autism Focus

This change causes the Thompson et al. 2007 study (PMID 17898097) to be emphasized over other studies, for no reason that I can see. The change uses peacock terms like "a recent study" and "New England Journal of Medicine" to highlight this particular study; why? The study is smaller than some of the other studies that are already mentioned as "smaller studies finding no association". If there is a good reason to highlight this particular study over the other ones, it should be explained; otherwise, the study should just be listed along with the rest (which it already is). Eubulides 20:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. However, I did notice that this study evaluated not just autism, but a spectrum of neurological disorders. Why was the section on consensus focused only on autism effects?

The study in question addressed the neurological symptoms of autism, one at a time. It did not address whether the subjects in question had a diagnosis of autism, but it is a mistake to characterize the study as one that attempted to address general neurological problems. It was focusing on autism's signs, it was motivated by autism, and it did not at all address neurological problems in general. So I'm afraid this change made things worse. Eubulides 04:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I attempted to fix the problem with this change. Eubulides 06:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Unjustified changes

This change caused the first sentence of the article to become ungrammatical and meaningless. The thiomersal controversy is between two sides; it makes little sense to omit one of the two sides in the initial statement of the controversy.

This change removed a claim that is directly supported by the cited source. Offit 2007 says, "Although the notion that thimerosal causes autism has now been disproved by several excellent epidemiologic studies, about 10,000 autistic children in the United States receive mercury-chelating agents every year. Furthermore, this notion has diverted attention and resources away from efforts to determine the real cause or causes of the disorder."

Neither change was justified in the revision history. I've reverted them. I'm sure the article can stand improving, but these changes were not improvements. Eubulides 08:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The article certainly says that the notion has diverted attention and resources away from efforts to determine the real cause of the disorder, but - speaking as someone who agrees with that sentiment - it's very clearly the article writer's opinion, not an objectively verified fact; people who believe that thiomersal is the real cause of autism would obviously disagree. That sentence has no buisness being stated as fact in a supposedly NPOV encyclopedia article. 70.189.12.96 22:42, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, you've lost me. How would one "objectively verify" that the thiomersal theory has diverted attention and resources away from efforts to determine the causes of autism? Are you saying that the Offit paper doesn't count as an reliable source because it doesn't include NIH budget figures? Eubulides 23:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you're gonna argue that budget figures would help, but what really makes the statement not obective is that it says "real causes." That assumes that thiomersal itself isn't the real cause of autism. And, again, I agree that it isn't, but obviously people on the other side of the controversy don't, so that isn't NPOV. It would be totally appropriate to note that this one specific expert - or lots of experts, or lots of people on our side of the controversy, if you can get more cites - argues that the thiomersal controversy is a distraction. But just stating it as a fact violates NPOV. 70.189.12.96 00:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The phrase "real causes" is not in Thiomersal controversy. It's just "causes". I hope this addresses the NPOV objection. Eubulides 04:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Problems with recent changes to the lead

This change introduced several problems:

• It replaced a citation to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims with a citation to an IP address. This is substituting a less-reliable source for a more-reliable one.
• It reworded the text to make it claim that 4800 plaintiffs have filed in 2007. As far as I know, this claim is incorrect.
• It rewords the 1st sentence to make it sound like the only concern is about TCVs in children. This isn't correct; it's all TCVs.
• The reworded lead confusingly jumps from thiomersal to organomercury without explaining why the two concepts are related. We can't assume the reader knows this stuff.
• It inserts NPOV text like "adherents of mainstream medical opinion".

The only justification listed for this change was in the log, which said "Modification of Introduction to be more neutral. Correction of link/validation of references." I read through the change looking for link fixes and changing the wording to be more neutral, and came up with this change, which I applied instead. If I missed something let's please discuss this on the talk page. Eubulides (talk) 03:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

* I made a mistake with the Address. When I was following the citation earlier, I was being led to a site that had no relation to the topic. Don't ask me how that happened, but it works now.

• As for the addition of "Since 2007", that is when the class action suit began. I think a date reference is important here.
• It was also my understanding that autism is never developed in adults, however I will defer on this point.
• You can't call someone "mainstream medical opinion", they have to be defined further on this point. I chose to define it as someone who adheres to mainstream medical opinion. It's grammatically inaccurate at present.
• I also wanted to make the introduction an easier read. Right now, it's grammatically clumsy (the first line for example... controversies are defined by a topic, not by who is fighting over it) --Waterspyder (talk) 16:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• The class action suit did not begin in 2007. It began many years ago.
• There is also concern that TCVs given to pregnant women may help cause autism in their children.
• If I understand you correctly, the grammatical problem is that the previous version said that the controversy was between "critics" and "opinion"; if one side of the controversy is a group of people then the other side should be too. That makes sense, but I think it's better and more neutral to describe the controversy as being between two positions (i.e., two opinions) rather than between two groups of people, so as to not personalize the dispute. With that in mind, the revised lead paragraph gives too much emphasis to people: it talks about "critics" in several places.
• The revised version gives, by my count, about 130 words to anti-vaccination arguments and about 80 words to pro-vaccination. This skews too far to one side of the dispute.
• The revised version uses the word "thiomersal" 3 times in the 1st sentence and once in the 2nd; this is too much repetition.

I attempted to fix the above problems with this change. It adds a few more citations about the court cases, and spruces up existing citations. Eubulides (talk) 22:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, I cannot iterate enough that a controversy is on a subject and not between sides. To say "abortion" is a controversy between Catholic Pro-life advocates and Pro-choice mothers is limiting and actually makes it more biased. To state that "abortion" is a controversy regarding the right of a mother to terminate a pregnancy, is actually more neutral. In this case, you cannot simply state two sides. There are more sides, but there are two main opposing sides, each with a main core group. --Waterspyder (talk) 13:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The current wording is subject-oriented, not side-oriented, so I don't understand the criticism. Also, I don't agree that it is more neutral to state that abortion "is a controversy regarding the right of a mother to terminate a pregnancy". That wording is pro-choice, and it is less neutral than saying that the abortion controversy is between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. As the abortion example illustrates, subject-oriented wording can be more biased than side-oriented wording. If you take a look at the lead to Abortion debate, you'll see that it uses side-oriented wording and is relatively neutral. Eubulides (talk) 20:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Scientific consensus changes

These changes by User:137.28.185.19 to Thiomersal controversy #Scientific consensus on controversy introduced a lot of duplication, some poorly-formatted (and duplicative) citations, and some misspellings. I think the intent was to give more detail about studies refuting the connection between autism and thiomersal, but the overall effect was to make the article worse (the introduced text makes the resulting section drone on and one without letup, and puts at least this reader to sleep). There are some good ideas in the change, but it really needs to be thought through better: this article is supposed to be a readable summary of the controversy, and not a mind-numbing list of studies. I see that others had reverted the change as vandalism and then User:137.28.185.19 brought them back. I'm going to revert them now and point to this section in the changelog, in the hopes that we can figure out how to improve the article via discussion rather than via edit wars. Eubulides (talk) 06:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

New Reliable scientific study shows a clear connection to Autism

Here is something to integrate in the article [3] "Thimerosal exposure in infants and neurodevelopmental disorders: An assessment of computerized medical records in the Vaccine Safety Datalink." from Journal of the Neurological Sciences May 14th 2008. I think that this well designed study settles the controversy. MaxPont (talk) 12:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It's authors include the Geier pair so no.Geni 14:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The study is published after a blind peer review in a credible academic journal. The fact that someone dislikes one of the authors should not affect the decision to include the reference in the article. And by the way, the lead author is Young, not Geier. MaxPont (talk) 07:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The Geier's have had papers pulled in the past. Their involvement is enough to make the paper largely worthless unless replicated.Geni 11:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

And in spite of that the Journal of the Neurological Sciences published the article. Plus, this time the lead author is Young, not Geier. The lead author is the person that takes the largest responsibility for the publication.MaxPont (talk) 13:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Heather Young? oh much the same conflict of interest issues as the Geiers. That the Geiers are trying to hide behind someone with much the same conflict of interests issues is of no import.Geni 14:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

In the past, similar work by the Geiers has been widely discredited, and its use in Wikipedia has caused Wikipedia itself to lose credit. See, for example, Goodman 2006 (PMID 16915200). The new paper is too new to have been reviewed; in the meantime it is prudent not to play it up, considering its source. Come to think of it, I suspect the work cited by Goodman should be added here, so that readers know what kind of source they're dealing with. Eubulides (talk) 14:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

This study seems problematic too because it flies in the face of the much more detailed and expansive analysis of the data being performed by the CDC itself [4]. Tmtoulouse (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That study is already cited in this article, in Thiomersal controversy#Rationale for concern. I agree with Geni that the study has not affected scientific consensus. Eubulides (talk) 16:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Another study of the vaccine autism link

Presented at the 2008 International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR)[5] "Infant Primates Given Vaccines on U.S. Children's Immunization Schedule Develop Biomedical and Behavioral Symptoms of Autism" [6] MaxPont (talk) 13:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

That research hasn't appeared in any publications yet, as far as I know. We can wait until it's published. Eubulides (talk) 16:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Was it a poster presentations or an oral presentations? Poster submission to IMFAR would not really qualify as a reliable source, and the fact that the abstract is not available for review and the only sources that talk about it are hyperbolic press releases from the mercury militia all add up to this being not worth bothering with. Tmtoulouse (talk) 16:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Buttar's testimony

Here it is - a shiny new talk page section for discussing the potential inclusion of Buttar's congressional testimony. Please do not re-add the bullet until consensus is reached. - Eldereft (cont.) 21:39, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The wording of the section is clearly problematic as entered, and would need substantial rewriting were it to be included. But before embarking on that I would like to know why it needs to be included in the first place. Tmtoulouse (talk) 22:02, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

It does not need to be included. Here is some background. The original addition of the mention of Buttar's testimony was done in concert with the creation of a Wikipedia article Dr. Rashid A. Buttar that (1) was an advertisement for Dr. Buttar's services, and (2) neglected to mention that Dr. Buttar was recently disciplined by the North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners, which restricted his practice so that he is no longer permitted to treat children or cancer patients.[7] The Buttar article was speedily deleted; likewise, Thiomersal controversy should not be an advertising platform for Buttar. Eubulides (talk) 22:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I concur, and believe that the onus of proof of notability is pretty high for inclusion at this point. I will await to see if they can offer more than they have so far. Tmtoulouse (talk) 22:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The notoriety=notability of this character would make him eligible for inclusion in a list of dubious persons associated with the mass hysteria around this issue. -- Fyslee / talk 06:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Financial Ties of American Academy of Pediatrics

Would it not be pertinent to the controversy to point out that, according to CBS News, the "vaccine industry gives millions to the Academy of Pediatrics for conferences, grants, medical education classes and even helped build their headquarters." The article continues, "The totals are kept secret, but public documents reveal bits and pieces"." after which they mention a nearly half-million dollar contribution from Merck, in "the same year the academy endorsed Merck's HPV vaccine - which made 1.5 billion dollars a year in sales".[8]

Such facts might be important to anyone studying the controversy, in order to evaluate whether they might constitute a possible conflict of interest in the "scientific consensus" mentioned in the article, in which the AAP is included to support the rejection of a causal link. --MisterSquirrel 14:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Attkisson appears to be making a career out of this sort of story, joy. Better would be a source describing how believers assert or allege conflict of interest among the medical consensus in order to advance their cause. Such a source would probably belong in the Rationale for concern section, as a conflict of interest would certainly decrease the reliability of promulgated information. This course allows us to take a step back from the controversy, which aids in finding a neutral description without rehashing the entire debate either here or on the article. - Eldereft (cont.) 15:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thiomersal was not mentioned in that story, and I think it unlikely that thiomersal is relevant (the story is about recent vaccines that don't have thiomersal). Vaccine controversy is the logical location for this material. Also, I agree with Eldereft that a better source is needed. Eubulides (talk) 17:15, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Well if we are traveling down that path, I think it would help to mention that all studies "proving" there is no link to autism are carried out by the Institute of Medicine...which are funded by the government. What I also find funny about that is looking up the wiki article for the IoM, it says "Though a majority of IOM studies are requested and funded by the United States federal government, other organizations may also request studies as long as they have no financial conflict regarding the outcome of the study." Seeing how Merck (only the worlds largest vaccine manufacturer) is head of vaccine safety control for the CDC (government) I see a serious conflict of interest and "financial conflict regarding the outcome of the study".98.227.247.206 (talk) 02:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

It is not true that 'all studies "proving" there is no link to autism are carried out by the Institute of Medicine'. For example, the most recently cited study in the article, namely Pichichero et al. 2008 (PMID 18245396), was not carried out by the IoM. As far as I know, there is no such thing as the "head of vaccine safety control for the CDC". Eubulides (talk) 03:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I did a very quick search on pichichero and found out he "collaborates with vaccine companies, international scientists, federally funded investigators, the NIH, FDA, CDC and WHO to characterize immunogenicity and efficacy of vaccines." Now we could debate all day long on the definition of "collaborating" and such, but it would be nice to see a completely independent company perform research on the links between autism and this chemical. Oh wait, they have been done. And those people are all considered quacks. Funny how the only trusted studies are the ones that are somehow linked to the CDC, WHO, IOM, FDC or vaccine manufacturers. One may say that the CDC, WHO etc are trusted organizations, but the problem is that they are all linked to the vaccine manufacturers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.247.206 (talk) 01:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of any "completely independent company". But this discussion is starting to veer from the intended topic of this talk page, namely, what text should be on Thiomersal controversy. Eubulides (talk) 01:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If it is veering, indulge me in an attempt to put it back on course. I disagree that this is somehow not a valid point.

Since the AAP is cited in this article about Thiomersal controversy, and the vaccine industry has an obvious interest in this controversy, information about potential conflicts of interest are pertinent. I don't see how it matters whether the CBS News article discussing the vaccine producers' ties to the AAP mentions Thiomersal specifically. The facts contained within are still pertinent to anyone studying the Thiomersal controversy. Otherwise, the student might assume the endorsement of the AAP of the lack of a causal link carries an impartial authority. The potential conflicts of interest mentioned in the article are certainly germane to evaluating that impartiality. Unless you are suggesting we must protect the student from such information?

As to "Attkisson appears to be making a career out of this sort of story, joy.". I know nothing about this; but in reading the article, very specific facts are stated. It is not mine to judge the credibility of CBS News, but I would presume that they have enough of a reputation as a primary news source, that they would not purposely publish such specific misinformation, for various legal reasons, and to protect their credibility. The information in the article which is pertinent to this controversy, is very specific, and I was unable to find it refuted anywhere. Therefore I am not sure whether the lack of credibility you imply of the author is a very convincing reason to disbelieve the verity of the information presented in the article. Unless you know of some refutation or correction of any of the very specific facts cited in the article, about substantial monetary and other gifts provided by various vaccine producers to the AAP, including those who have an interest in the Thiomersal controversy? --MisterSquirrel 03:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MisterSquirrel (talk • contribs)

Again, the source in question does not mention thiomersal. It's not relevant to this article. This is not an article for ad hominem attacks on organizations merely because they happen to be cited here; it is a page about the thiomersal controversy. The main connection between the AAP and thiomersal is the AAP's 1999 request to remove thiomersal from vaccines, and this new article is irrelevant to that connection. Eubulides (talk) 04:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Article Impartial?

This page seems partial to the medical community at large that allegedly rejects the hypothesis that thiomersals are responsible for various brain disorders. The introductory paragraph ends every sentence by casting doubt on the hypothesis. "... and mainstream medical opinion that no convincing scientific evidence supports these claims....this 1999 action sparked confusion and controversy that has diverted attention and resources away from other efforts to find the causes of autism....The scientific consensus—including scientific and medical professional bodies and governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration,[4] the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,[8] and the World Health Organization[9]—rejects the hypothesis that exposure to thiomersal causes or contributes to autism or other neurological disorders."

Each following paragraph includes statements to the effect that no one takes the Thiomersal controversy seriously...which is seriously untrue. Not to mention the section "consensus of medical community", which bashes us over the head with counter-evidence.

There is no evidence in support of the hypothesis anywhere in the article, and there is evidence out there This: [9] Examiner article is one such example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.254.38 (talk) 00:12, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The case the examiner refers too has nothing to do with thiomersal. The article appears to report things fairly, the truth is that the medical community does reject the claim that thiomersal has lead to any neurological problems. The claim that it does some hoe do this is a tiny minority opinion mostly held outside the medical community. WP:Undue policy dictates how we should address this relative to the majority opinion. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, that case (the Poling case) does have something to do with thiomersal: some of the vaccines Poling received contained thiomersal. However, Thiomersal controversy #Court cases already discusses this topic, with more detail (and more accuracy) than is in the Examiner article. The Examiner article incorrectly claims that the "federal attorneys said the thimerosal in the vaccine appears to have aggravated this disorder", but this claim is incorrect, as far as I know. Since Thiomersal controversy already covers this case accurately, I don't see what further changes are needed in this area.
• The article does present evidence for the minority opinion that thiomersal causes autism. For example, it summarizes and cites James 2005 (PMID 15527868), Hornig et al. 2004 (PMID 15184908), Mutter et al. 2005 (PMID 16264412), and six (!) studies coauthored by vaccines-cause-autism proponent Mark Geier.
• The theory that vaccines cause autism is clearly a minority view; the mainstream consensus is that there is no scientific evidence of a causal role. See, for example, Doja & Roberts 2006 (PMID 17168158).

Eubulides (talk) 01:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a seriously biased opinion "but this 1999 action sparked confusion and controversy that has diverted attention and resources away from other efforts to find the causes of autism". Seeing how people are trying to make sure no one else gets autism through this chemical, it's ignorant to say focusing on it diverts attention and resources from the cause of autism. It's just a silly comment too. I guess focusing on the chemical also takes my attention away from reading other articles....because I'm reading this one. If no one objects, I'll remove it tomorrow. 98.227.247.206 (talk) 02:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems accurate enough to me, since thiomersal does not cause autism the effort and energy spent dealing with the quacks that make the claim take energy away from dealing with real issues. The statement is sourced. Should stay. Tmtoulouse (talk) 02:13, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The link goes to an article written by Paul A. Offit. He is almost the backbone to the whole thiomersal controversy. Now I'm even more certain the line should be removed. But I'm not going to fight over it. I almost died laughing when I clicked on that link and saw his name front and center lol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.247.206 (talk) 03:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I have edited it to include that the statement is made by a merck board member. That makes the article more neutral. Merck is the largest manufacturer of vaccines and to use a quote from one of their board members as a fact is an injustice to wiki. 98.227.247.206 (talk) 04:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

That's more misinformation, I'm afraid. See the list of Merck board members. Offitt is not in the list. Nor is Offit "almost the backbone to the whole thiomersal controversy". Eubulides (talk) 04:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

According to the original link, he is. Look way at the bottom in the fine print. Maybe he no longer does. But most likely, he wrote the article when he was a board member. It needs to be mentioned as part of the controversy if you are going to include a statement like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.247.206 (talk) 12:41, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The article already wikilinks to Paul Offit; that should suffice for people who want to check his bona fides. Similarly, there's no need in the article to mention Mark Geier's ties to lawyers suing vaccine companies; the existing wikilink to Mark Geier should suffice. Eubulides (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The line is the personal belief of a doctor who works for/collaborates with merck. Which is where my original comment about him being the backbone to the controversy comes from. It's a biased opinion, from a biased source on an article about the controversy between the two. It needs to be presented as an argument on merck's side. Not stated as fact. But I realize I now have a little wiki friend following around my edits so will wait for someone else to fix this clearly impartial article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.247.206 (talk) 16:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

U.S.A. focused article

Article is heavily biased towards U.S.A. centric view, ignores worldwide policy and evidence, as well as legal and medical consensus of non-USA countries.

Article tries to present matter as black or white issue, seems biased towards trying to focus only on autism, ignoring other health issues.

FX (talk) 17:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

• As far as I know, the vast majority of the thiomersal controversy is in the U.S., so it's appropriate for the article to be U.S.-centric. Of course, if there are reliable sources about the controversy elsewhere these should be added.
• The following text was prepended to the lead when the above comment was made:

"In the U.S.A., thiomersal was banned in 1998 from over the counter drugs, but thimerosal is still found in some U.S. vaccines. Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines in 1980. Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have also banned the preservative from vaccines. In the United States of America, thiomersal is still used, leading to the thiomersal controversy, a U.S.A centered controversy. Some point out studies that show"

This material is not suitable for the lead sentence. As per WP:LEAD, the lead should start by defining the subject; it should not start by a list of countries and what they did. Something along the lines of the material would be suitable for the body of the article, but it needs a reliable source.

• Also, the material is misleading. As I understand it, thiomersal-containing vaccines are still in widespread use in many countries. This issue should be covered in the article, with reliable sources of course
• I suggest proposing text to be added to the article here, on the talk page; we can then get it right and then install it. For now I reverted the change.

Eubulides (talk) 19:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Effects section - NPOV, lack of citations

I'm going to check the claims of this section out and see if I can provide sources. I think something needs to also be said about the effect of removing thiomersal from vaccines on rates of diagnosis of autism (ie: no effect). Any assistance would be appreciated. - and you will know know me by the trail of dead. (talk) 00:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Autism rates dropping

I've found multiple sources that report autism rates (new cases reported) are dropping. Due to the expected controversy and fighting over the issue, there is no way I am adding them to the knowledge base.

You might think something like the number of new cases of autism would be an easy to find, public record sort of dataset. Nothing could be farther from the truth. FX (talk) 04:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't ask me for the sources. You can find them in seconds using Google. Type in "autism rates dropping". It's easy.

Taken together, all the above mentioned data from experimental, clinical and partly from epidemiological studies appear to show that repetitive mercury expo- sure during pregnancy (through thimerosal and dental amalgam), and after birth, through thimerosal contain- ing vaccinations in genetically susceptible individuals is one potential pathogenetic factor in autism. Other metals and toxicants, partly present in vaccines, and the hormonal situation might have synergistic effects with mercury. This has not been officially acknowledged.

Neuroendocrinology Letters Vol.26 No.5, October 2005
Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?
Joachim Mutter, Johannes Naumann, Rainer Schneider

FX (talk) 04:35, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

This search doesn't bring up any reliable source I can see... — Scientizzle 05:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Reports of autism cases grew dramatically in the U.S. from 1996 to 2007. It is unknown how much, if any, growth came from changes in autism's prevalence.

I'm afraid that the sources I found with the Google query "autism rates dropping" were not reliable. I don't know of any reliable source that claims that true autism prevalence is going down, or going up for that matter. The administrative prevalence (that is, the proportion of children reported to authorities as having autism, as opposed to the true proportion of children) is still rising in the U.S., as can be seen by the adjacent chart, which contains the most-recent figures I could find. Eubulides (talk) 05:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

http://fightingautism.org/idea/autism.php?s=50&z=m Can you make any sense out of those graphs? FX (talk) 21:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

If I'm interpreting those graphs correctly, the number of autism cases in the USA has grown every year since '92. There's an annual increase (by 16-28% each year) in cases that is well above the rate of a general "all disabilities" category; the rates do roughly track.

The gist of this, assuming the collection and analysis of the data is accurate, is that any claim that the rates of autism diagnosis in the United States are dropping is demonstrably incorrect. At best, the yearly proportional increase of diagnoses may be decreasing from ~21% more cases per year to ~17% more per year. — Scientizzle 22:22, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

http://www.sacunion.com/pages/california/articles/5424 News story

https://www.ideadata.org/documents.asp raw statistics

I spent more than a few minutes trying to determine the validity of The Associated Press story. If the rate of new cases is dropping, eventually this should show up in statistics. Still, animal studies would be real science.

http://www.safeminds.org/research/pediatric-vaccines-influence-primat-behavior.html

What if it is just the number of vaccines, not mercury, that ends up being the cause? FX (talk) 13:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The AP story is making an overly big deal about the leveling off of the rate of increase of as I described above. The animal study is arguably not "real science"--it's a poster presentation (read: not peer-reviewed) of clearly flawed data, which has been latched onto by anti-vaccination folks and been critically demolished by several scientists. It makes some awful big claims for a study lacking a balanced control group. Everything you've presented here is run-of-the-mill autism-antivaccine stuff that has been analyzed and refuted by high quality scientific research.

Sadly, there is no discernible link between vaccines (not their contents, not their dosing) and autism. I say "sadly" because if there was it could actually be a huge opportunity to finally unearth the etiology of autism, in turn potentially leading to definitive treatment and prevention plans. — Scientizzle 01:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that ...

.. is you don't provide any sources. Anecdotes, like yours, are not evidence, nor is anything you said. Wikipedia is not about trying to determine the truth, but putting together an encyclopedia of stuff that other sources have amassed. Those who try to promote their agenda, their view, are against the NPOV which is the standard for Wikipedia articles. This is why original research is prohibited.

If all the information is available, from all the credible sources, then that is the knowledge on a subject. Those who want to edit out sources, and decide what is true, rather than let the reader have all the facts, are trying to promote their view, not help build a free encyclopedia. You know who you are.

Those who fight to restrict information, are the enemy of knowledge. Those who want to spin things their way, are the opposite of a NPOV.

If CBS or CNN or any real News outlet does a story, and you think they are wrong, you don't get to delete the story reference. If another credible source disagrees, you put that in as a counter. I know, some idiots think they should be the arbitrators of what is allowed to be read on the Internet. They are not only stupid, they are small minded. To them, I always say, you are not the authority. You don't get to decide. Get a clue and quit trying to control information. It is not your job to censor the Internet.

FX (talk) 03:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)