I would add, be careful not to come into physical contact with either, but especially thiomersal, it is metabolised to ethylmercury.
I am pretty disgusted by the use of it as a preservative in the MMR vaccine, they inject that s#*$ into kids, and then wonder why they end up with developmental disorders, no bloody wonder 
The thing is, there has been NO CONCLUSIVE REPORT that links developmental disorders with thimerosal. None. Numerous health organizations from various countries around the world have performed extensive reports on the level of mercury exposure resulting from these vaccines, and none of the investigations have shown any link between thimerosal and problems. (The Canadian government has done a great deal of testing on thimerosal and has found nothing. Here's a link to one of their pages:
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/dird-dimr/pdf/thimerosal_e.pdf).
http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=75807http://www.timetoteach.co.uk/AutismandADHDLinkedtoVaccines.html I had to post this final link because any good argument must recognize the other side. However, this particular 'study' is a big crock of s#*$. The study the author is citing looked into levels of METHYL Mercury and how it affects people. The problem is, thimerosal doesn't degrade into methyl mercury. It is metabolized into ethyl mercury. The difference between the methyl and ethyl groups are HUGE. Formic acid is poisonous. Ethanoic Acid is vinegar. Formaldehye will kill you. Ethylaldehyde will just make you feel bad. Methanol will kill you. Ethanol will make you drunk. So the biological differences between methyl and ethyl groups are huge. Typically speaking, methyl derivatives of compounds are much more troubling than ethyl derivatives. There's a reason people take methamphetamine and not ethamphetamine. So a study that says 'thimerosal is horrible for you because methyl mercury is bad' is akin to saying 'skiing is bad for you because a gunshot wound to the face is bad'.
In addition, further studies have found that the half-life of ethylmercury in the blood is MUCH shorter than the halflife of methylmercury in the blood. This means that the human body is able to get rid of ethylmercury, much, much quicker. In fact, fecal samples of infants exposed to Thimerosal have shown that nearly all of their exposure to the vaccine containing thimerosal has been eliminated in their poop within a very short time period.
So why has the use of thimerosal been reduced in vaccines? Simply because the public hears 'mercury' and begins to panic and blame every single problem they've ever had on mercury. I myself see nothing wrong with the decision to reduce the number of thimerosal containing vaccines since there really has been no 100% conclusive proof on either side. Still, the lack of any solid link between thimerosal containing vaccines and developmental problems does seem to say something.
As for the mercury exposure you would receive from a thimerosal containing vaccine, you would get a higher exposure from eating a tuna-fish sandwich; smoking a few cigarettes, or driving through a smoggy city. So to blame any problems on purely a vaccine in which the mercury content has not been proven to affect anything is kind of fishy.
Just to put things in perspective, Arsenic is a VERY toxic element and I think just about all arsenic compounds are highly toxic. The thing is, if one is exposed to very small amount of arsenic, it will actually cause their metabolism to increase and the number of red-blood cells they have to increase as well. So if one started taking in arsenic, they'd boost their metabolism and increase their endurance. The problem is that the amount of As you need to get the benefits is frighteningly close to the amount you need to drop dead, so purposefully taking in arsenic is a really bad idea.
Now I will admit that I used to look at mercury has a horrible, horrible thing and any exposure at all is horrifically bad. Then I went and did some research on the stuff and found out that it's not nearly as toxic as one may believe. Toxic effects are seen on a long term, chronic exposure of through a very massive short term exposure. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the story about the Dartmouth(
) professor who was exposed to an organic mercury compound and passed away due to the exposure. The thing is, that professor worked with organic Hg compounds for years so one would have to expect her exposure to mercury to have gone on for a good long while. As a result, even though the levels of mercury in the blood prior to the fatal enounter may not have been that high, the chronic exposure had weakened her body's ability to fight off any subsequent exposure.
In the case of vaccines, your exposure to the mercury in the vaccine is a short term, small exposure. It could possibly be dangerous if the person who received the vaccine then spent a good deal of his/her life around mercury. If that was the case, however, then the person should be incredibly pissed at the other things which led to their exposure and NOT the vaccine itself. (I.E. if their parents smoked cigarettes around them, or fed them shellfish with high Hg levels in it, etc. etc.).
If you get a vaccine, the biggest problem faced is an allergy to eggs or egg products. Still, the benefits of a vaccine faaaaaaaaaaaar outweigh any possible side effects.
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Topic: Synthesis Mercurochrome (Read 22563 times)