The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a new report that there is no link between autism and a preservative called thimerosal.
“Since 2001, all childhood vaccines licensed and recommended in the United States have been thimerosal-free, with the exception of some multi-dose formulations of influenza vaccines,” the report notes, adding that several vaccines in the country have “never” contained the preservative, including inoculations for MMR, varicella, inactivated polio, pneumococcal conjugate.
Discussing several studies that report a link between the preservative and autism, the CDC said the research has “significant methodological limitations including unmeasured confounding, inaccurate assessment of exposures, differences in control and case groups, unverified diagnoses, and other potential biases that threaten the validity and reliability of the findings.”
The CDC further stated that due to the “breadth of evidence and consistency in results from multiple population-based studies conducted in several countries with various study designs, the evidence does not support an association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism spectrum disorder or other neurodevelopmental disorders.”
The report went on to declare: “No association between prenatal exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccinations and autism spectrum disorder in children.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote a book on the link between vaccine effects and thimerosal in his 2014 book, “Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak.”
The report comes just ahead of a CDC meeting, where a discussion of thimerosal is expected.
Kennedy recently purged 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in what he called a necessary step to “restore public trust” and reduce conflicts of interest. He then placed eight individuals onto the ACIP, each of whom is “committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense,” Kennedy said.
