Published on Apr 7, 2015
Robert F Kennedy at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, CA, with moderator, Dr. Robert L. Hendren, MD.

http://fox13now.com/2015/04/06/robert-f-kennedy-jr-talks-about-link-between-ingredient-in-vaccines-and-autism/

“If somebody can show me a single study, one study, if any of the doctors you’ve mentioned can show me a single study that shows that thimerosal is safe, I will go on Anderson Cooper and publicly apologize. I challenge you. Find me one study.”

~Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

http://drhyman.com/blog/2014/07/18/thimerosal-let-science-speak/

Thimerosal: Why We Need To Open the Debate on Safety

by Mark Hyman, MD
Last Updated January 8, 2015

Vaccinations are among the most important advances in medicine in the last century. We have eradicated smallpox from the planet and dramatically reduced death and suffering from infectious disease around the globe.

I am aggressively pro-vaccine. I am a father and family physician. I have vaccinated my children. I have been vaccinated and recommend vaccination to my patients.

Critics of Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, edited by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will quickly polarize the debate. It is easy to oversimplify the issue of Thimerosal into pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, into pro-science or anti-science, or to attack his character rather than discuss the actual science. The history of medicine is replete with personal attacks that subvert open debate.

Critics will confuse this issue by debating whether Thimerosal causes autism, which has not been definitively proven and is not the subject of the book or the issues raised about Thimerosal. This is unfortunate, and detracts from a much simpler set of questions that are ultimately the subject of this scientifically dense book. Anyone who feels this issue is closed should take the time to carefully review the book and the hundreds of scientific references on which it is based.

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There is also no debate about the dramatic increased prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders over the last few decades, including learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders and autism.

There may, however, be debate on the strength of the data and science implicating mercury in this increased prevalence of brain injury in children. These questions can never be adequately answered given the challenges of doing experimental studies on human subjects over long periods of time. Obviously, no ethical review board would ever approve a study in which children were purposefully exposed to mercury in order to test its toxicity. Population studies show correlations, but never prove causation, making it impossible to draw firm conclusions.

That leaves us with a very simple, moral question, and ultimately a very personal one. Because at some point in our lives, nearly all of us will have a child or grandchild who requires vaccinations. Or we will know a pregnant woman who will have to decide whether or not to get a flu shot that might contain mercury. All of us are people and parents first, and scientists and policymakers second.

So there is only one question that really matters.

Would you expose the unborn child or infant of a loved one to a vaccine containing mercury, a known neurotoxin, if there were other safer alternatives?

The answer to this question is simply common sense and requires no further scientific inquiry, but as Voltaire said, “common sense is not so common”.

If there were no other options, if it were a question of whether to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, then of course we would choose vaccination. But that is a false choice. There are 137 million children born each year in the world. Is our only option to subject them to a potent neurotoxin in their most delicate neurodevelopmental period? How can we best protect that future generation from preventable harm?

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What perplexes me is that few of the journalists writing about this issue recently have actually read the book or reviewed the science personally but rather accepted institutional pronouncements of safety.

Science progresses by debate, not denouncements. And the science should never be closed on any subject – the nature of science is to constantly question hypotheses. To say the issue on Thimerosal is closed is simply unscientific.

Just as we now are learning that fat may not be the driver of heart disease and obesity, overturning decades of scientific pronouncements and government polices, we need to be open to a scientific debate on Thimerosal.

The FDA has now ruled that trans fats are not safe, but still declares that injectable mercury is safe.

I think there is no place for mercury in any form in medical products, especially those injected into children and pregnant women. The precautionary principle suggests we should be better safe than sorry.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. But in this case there is abundant evidence if any journalist or scientist would take the time to read it as we did and is extensively documented in this book. While strength of all the evidence is not equal, and the conclusions not completely definitive, the overwhelming weight of the data suggest that there is potential for great harm.

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