Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved to adopt the recommendation that vaccine preservative thimerosal be removed from flu inoculations.
“After more than two decades of delay, this action fulfills a long-overdue promise to protect our most vulnerable populations from unnecessary mercury exposure,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Injecting any amount of mercury into children when safe, mercury-free alternatives exist defies common sense and public health responsibility.”
“With the U.S. now removing mercury from all vaccines, we urge global health authorities to follow this prudent example for the protection of children worldwide,” Kennedy added.
The recommendation, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), came during a June meeting.
Thimerosal was recently the subject of a report where the CDC argued that the ingredient is not linked to autism. “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 said, adding that several vaccines in the country have “never” contained the preservative, including inoculations for MMR, varicella, inactivated polio, pneumococcal conjugate.
Efforts to remove thimerosal from vaccines began in 1999, HHS explained, when U.S. Public Health Service, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and vaccine manufacturers agreed that any possible risk from mercury was enough to remove the ingredient from inoculations.
