RFK Jr. wins his fight against a rare, safe flu-shot ingredient

The Washington Post ^ | June 26, 2025 | Lauren Weber and Lena H. Sun

[E. Pluribus Unum]

A CDC panel’s vote to stop recommending thimerosal containing flu shots would have limited impact, but it illustrates how the anti-vaccine movement is achieving its goals.

ATLANTA — Federal vaccine advisers installed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted Thursday to effectively remove an ingredient from flu shots, achieving a longtime, controversial goal of anti-vaccine activists and illustrating how their priorities are becoming official government guidance.

The vote to no longer recommend influenza vaccines that contain the preservative thimerosal, based on the presentation of a single vaccine critic, is likely to have limited impact because the vast majority of flu shots are thimerosal-free. But it would probably make the shots more expensive and harder to receive in parts of the country, public health experts said, and showed the panel’s willingness to disregard scientific evidence.

Those experts were surprised that Kennedy’s newly reformulated Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) abruptly added thimerosal to the agenda of its first meeting because they considered the issue resolved decades ago. Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepared a report, later taken offline, showing that the preservative is safe.

But Kennedy, the founder of the anti-vaccine advocacy group Children’s Health Defense, has long criticized the use of thimerosal because it metabolizes into a form of mercury in the body that he says is dangerous. Kennedy edited a book aimed at persuading the CDC to remove thimerosal in any vaccines more than a decade ago.

Now Kennedy will be able to enact that ban and is upending other vaccine policies once considered bipartisan and stable, even as administrations changed.

“The fearmongering and speculation by the mainstream media that this committee would cast doubt on vaccines to promote hesitancy were not just wrong, they were reckless and defamatory,” HHS...

[Locomotive Breath]

Ohhhh! Mercury. Scary!
A founding principle of toxicology is that “The dose makes the poison”. How much of this mercury-based preservative is in a single dose of a vaccine?

[acapesket]

Let us think about Aspergilius Fumagatis.... One of the major ingredients of PFIZER Covid Vaccine... It’s the same as toenail fungus.
Good Luck!

[Seaplaner]

Let us think about Aspergilius Fumagatis.... One of the major ingredients of PFIZER Covid Vaccine...

Source please. Thanks much in advance!

[bigbob]

RFKJ is getting stuff done

[webheart]

Tinea unguium is toenail fungus.

[Pollard]

RFK Jr. wins his fight against a rare, safe flu-shot ingredient

RFK Jr. wins his fight against a rarely, safe flu-shot ingredient

[OrangeDaisy]

Flu vaccines containing Thimerosal give me hives. I have to ask for a preservative free flu vaccine. My PCP suggested I had the allergy after I got hives a few days after a 3 flu vaccines. It did not happend every year, which led her to suspect Thimerosal. They only put it in the vials that are used to store multiple doses.

[Dr. Franklin]

Thimerosal, an ethylmercury, is 50% mercury by weight and is already not recommended for childhood vaccines. It’s already banned in Sweden, Denmark, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Ireland.
Methylmercury and ethylmercury distribute to all body tissues, crossing the blood–brain barrier and the placental barrier, and ethylmercury also moves freely throughout the body.

Thimerosal was used as a preservative in saline solution for contact lenses. It was discontinued because many people developed an allergic reaction to it.

[logi_cal869]

Stopped reading at “safe”...

[Wuli]

“The vote to no longer recommend influenza vaccines that contain the preservative thimerosal, based on the presentation of a single vaccine critic,”

There was NEVER any evidence that thimerosal was safe and much evidence it is not.