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Change to Vaccine Bill Reverses Mercury Ban

Posted on: Friday, 3 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By KATHIE DURBIN , Columbian staff writer

OLYMPIA -- A bill banning more than trace amounts of mercury in vaccines given to pregnant women and young children was amended on the House floor Tuesday to restore language that renders it meaningless.

Rep. Eileen Cody, D-Seattle, who chairs the House Health Care Committee, added back language that says the ban does not apply if a vaccine has been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA approves all vaccines in use in the United States, including those that contain the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal.

Sen. Marilyn Rasmussen, D-Eatonville, who has worked for two sessions to win meaningful legislation on mercury in vaccines, was furious when she learned of Cody's last-minute change.

"She just killed it," Rasmussen said. "Why did she do that? We will be one of the few states that want to take mercury out of fish but still inject it in babies."

"We will look really foolish in the eyes of states that are doing the right thing," said Mary Anne Stewart of Vancouver, an anti- mercury activist.

Cody did not return a call seeking comment.

Proponents of the bill cite the sharp increase in the incidence of diagnosed childhood autism and other neurological disorders in the 1990s, which coincided with an increase in the use of thimerosal in several childhood vaccines. Thimerosal, which has been in use in some vaccines since the 1930, contains about 50 percent ethyl mercury.

The bill's supporters note that methyl mercury, a different form of mercury that is regulated by the EPA, is known to damage young nervous systems at very low doses.

Rasmussen chairs the Senate Health and Longterm Care Committee, which removed Cody's reference to the FDA before passing the measure. She helps care for her autistic grandson.

As amended in her committee, the bill would have made it illegal for a doctor to administer any mercury-containing vaccine to a pregnant woman or a child three years of age or younger after July 1, 2007, if it contained more than trace amounts of mercury.

State health officials would have been able to suspend the ban in a public health emergency.

California and five other states already have similar laws on the books. Eleven more state legislatures are considering banning mercury-containing vaccines this year.

Between 1989 and 1992, the amount of mercury in vaccines given to infants and young children in the United States nearly tripled as the number of scheduled childhood vaccines increased from 8 to 20. By 1999, the preservative was being used in vaccines to protect children against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, bacterial meningitis and hepatitis B.

That year, officials from the Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics asked vaccine manufacturers to voluntarily remove thimerosal from their products as a precaution. Today, only some flu vaccines administered to preschool children and some combination vaccines contain significant amounts of thimerosal.

On the House floor Tuesday, Cody did not mention the effect her amendment would have. "There are many people who are concerned that there is still mercury in their vaccines, and they aren't getting their children vaccinated," she said. "We see this as more of a public education bill."

Rep. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum, called the measure "an important bill for children's health and the environment."

The amended bill passed the House 97-0.

Source: Columbian

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