Sunday Mercury, 06/07/2003

A British mother is campaigning to ban the mercury-based preservative, Thimerosal, from being used in child vaccinations - because it has been linked to autism by some researchers.

Claire Bothwell, originally from Coventry, has led a battle in the United States against Thimerosal, a compound 50 per cent composed of ethylmercury. It is contained in the diphtheria, tetanus and wholecell pertussis (DTP) vaccine given to babies in Britain. The preservative is also found in hepatitis B and some influenza jabs but it is not used in the combined MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine which campaigners have also linked to autism.

Mother-of-three Claire, who has two autistic children, Fisk and Katrina, has been dubbed the English Erin Brockovich in the US because of her campaign against the preservative.

She claims that her children became autistic as a direct result of being injected with vaccinations containing Thimerosal.

The US Congress has recommended that pharmaceutical companies stop using the preservative in paediatric vaccines in America and British campaigners want an outright ban on mercury being used in child vaccinations in the United Kingdom. But the UK government has rejected suggestions that the preservative has any adverse effect on infants.

US researchers recently claimed that children who had received vaccines containing Thimerosal were more than twice as likely to develop autism than children who did not.

Earlier studies appear also to have shown that the symptoms of autism are markedly similar to those of mercury poisoning.

Claire first heard about the possible links between autism and Thimerosal through a friend who sent her a report titled "Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning." Her son, Fisk, was nine at the time and she immediately began investigating the claims.

She now works with the legal firm, Waters & Kraus, who have taken on Thimerosal cases. More than 2,000 families have contacted them about it.

"I’ve no doubt that there are children who have been diagnosed with autism who have been damaged by MMR," said Claire. "But I think there is another group that have been damaged by persistent exposure to Thimerosal through other shots. More children than ever before are being diagnosed with autism and there has also been an increase in neurological disorders such as Attention-Deficit Disorder. Experts say that this is due to doctors being more aware of the problems, but if that is the case, where are all the adults who missed being diagnosed with autism when they were children?

"All my children were born in the same hospital and went to the same doctors. The only difference between them is the vaccines they received. My second child, Katrina, is not nearly as affected as my son. By chance, she received fewer vaccines containing Thimerosal than Fisk did.

"I had heard the debates about MMR and decided not to give her the booster jab she was due," said Claire. "Jillian, my third child, didn’t have any and she is not autistic. We want Thimerosal taken out of everything. There is no reason to have a substance that is toxic in anything given to humans. I can’t change what has happened to my family, but I want other parents to be able to have the choice to make the right decisions for their children."

Claire said that she is not against vaccinations which do protect against diseases. She said that she had allowed her children to be vaccinated because she wanted to be a good mother.

"I’m not going to beat myself up about it," she added. "I got my children vaccinated because I thought I was being a good parent. Fisk has had therapy since he was three years old. He’s in a regular school now but still needs aids to help him.
It is very hard to deal with him sometimes. Other times it can be great. His friends have to be very tolerant of him.
I don’t know what to expect for him. Some days I think he is OK and that he will make it. One of my biggest fears is that he will never be independent.

"I didn’t think about Thimerosal until I did research and ordered Fisk’s medical records after hearing about the dangers.
All the parents had been talking about MMR, which Fisk had as well. I went back and charted each visit I had made to the doctors with each of my children and assessed each reaction they had to each vaccine. I believe my son and daughter are autistic because of the vaccinations they received that contained Thimerosal."

A US government report has recommended that President George W. Bush should order a White House conference on autism to uncover the causes of what some are seeing as an epidemic in America.

The latest findings in the US show that the number of autistic children is growing between 10 and 17 per cent every year.

Jonathan Harris, West Midlands representative for the campaign group Justice, Awareness and Basic Support - JABS for short - is urging the British government to take more heed of this research.

"The similarities between the symptoms of mercury poisoning and autism are frightening," said Harris. "We should be doing the same as America and phasing out the use of mercury in vaccinations. The government is too readily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry who, at the end of the day, are making money out of these vaccines. If a parent followed all the recommendations laid down by the British government, their child would have received a total of 29 vaccinations by the time they reached school age. Eighteen of these are given before they are six months old. It is ridiculous. Two of my four children are autistic and I belive this is caused by their MMR vaccination."

A spokesman for Britain's Department of Health said: "Two independently-conducted UK epidemiological studies that investigated the safety of Thimerosal-containing vaccines for children have been recently completed.

These studies showed no evidence of adverse developmental effects from exposure to levels of Thimerosal at the amounts used in existing UK vaccines. "A further study in infants has shown that ethylmercury is rapidly excreted from the body following administration of Thimerosal-containing vaccines."

The World Health Orgainsation has stated that its Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety is reviewing the safety of Thimerosal. Its experts say that current assessments have not provided enough evidence to prove toxicity in infants, children or adults exposed to Thimerosal.