Pregnant women: ask for a flu vaccine that's mercury-free.

This is the recommendation of a U.W. professor of environmental health sciences, not a "quack."

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-women/2008/09/26/an-option-flu-vaccines-without-mercury-based-thimerosal.html

The other concern is that the kind of mercury found in vaccines is different from the methyl mercury found in fish. While thimerosal gets flushed from the body much faster than methyl mercury, what remains is more likely to accumulate in the brain, as inorganic mercury, and remain there for a year or more, according to a 2005 University of Washington study of infant monkeys. "We still don't have enough data to say how long this inorganic mercury stays in the brain, but if you can reduce or eliminate your baby's exposure, why wouldn't you do that?" says Tom Burbacher, a professor of environmental occupational health sciences who led the study.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists sent out a news release yesterday urging all pregnant women to get flu shots, with the proviso that shots containing thimerosal are fine because "there is no evidence showing that thimerosal is a danger to the health of the pregnant woman or her fetus." When I read that quote to Burbacher, he said, "that is a very misleading statement because women will assume there's been exhaustive research done on this showing that it's safe for fetuses, and there's no such data."

He doesn't mean that pregnant women should avoid getting flu shots. Instead, Burbacher says, they should get one that's thimerosal free. Yes, they're available, but you might need to ask around to find a doctor's office that dispenses them. Many don't, probably because not enough women are asking for them.

Why isn't the CDC recommending thimerosal-free vaccines to pregnant women? I posed this question to John Iskander, who is the acting director for immunization safety at the CDC. "From a public health standpoint, there's still not enough women receiving the flu vaccine, and we don't want to throw up another barrier in the vaccination process," he told me. But the individual pregnant woman who's concerned about unknown risks, Burbacher recommends, should ask for that flu vaccine without thimerosal.

one of the questions on the questionnaire is if a woman is pregnant or might be pregnant. If so, we won't give her a regular flu shot, only thimerosal free. Hopefully other clinics will do the same.

That's how they get you.