Judge denies group's request that pregnant women be offered swine flu vaccines free of neurotoxins

Nedra Pickler
Associated Press
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:52 UTC

A judge on Wednesday denied an advocacy group's bid to prevent the government from giving pregnant women flu vaccines with a preservative that contains mercury.

Leaders of the Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs say their effort took on a new urgency when a government advisory committee recently recommended that pregnant women be among the first people to get swine flu vaccinations when the vaccine becomes available this fall.

A small amount of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal is in most influenza shots, including swine flu vaccines, but some are produced thimerosal-free. The coalition argued that pregnant women should only get the thimerosal-free version because of a risk that the mercury in the shot could poison a fetus and cause medical problems, including autism.

But U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled against the group's request for a preliminary injunction because he said the group couldn't prove that pregnant women they represent would get vaccines containing thimerosal.

Walton said he would consider further written arguments in the next month about whether the lawsuit can continue.

Thimerosal used to be used in a number of vaccines, but manufacturers began removing the preservative from all routine child vaccines in 2001 as a precaution. But numerous large studies have shown no link between thimerosal and autism, or other health problems.

Comment: Those "studies" were a deliberate cover-up. The world is still waiting for a true scientific study comparing the vaccinated population against the completely unvaccinated population. The reason it hasn't been done is simple: they're afraid of what they might find. According to an interview with Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, when asked the question about the mercury-autism link:

"I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational," Healy said.

"But public health officials have been saying they know, they've been implying to the public there's enough evidence and they know it's not causal," Attkisson said.

"I think you can't say that," Healy said. "You can't say that."

Healy goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are "susceptible" to vaccine side effects - afraid the answer will scare the public.

"You're saying that public health officials have turned their back on a viable area of research largely because they're afraid of what might be found?" Attkisson asked.

Healy said: "There is a completely expressed concern that they don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people."