SafeMinds: FDA/EPA Misses Boat on Fish-Based Mercury Warning; Toxicology Professor Charges Industry, Not Safety, Controls FDA Mercury Policy

3/25/2004

From: Joe Giganti, 703-928-9695 or Joe@VeritasMediaGroup.com, for SafeMinds

WASHINGTON, March 25 -- SafeMinds-America's leading scientific organization investigating the risks that mercury-containing medical products pose to our children-has issued the following response to the recent joint warning issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The warning advised women of childbearing age or who were pregnant, and young children to avoid consuming certain fish known to be high in mercury content because of the risk it would pose to their health. In response Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN, NP, president of SafeMinds, stated:

"The FDA's continues to perpetuate contradictory policies regarding mercury-containing products.

"Over the past several weeks we have once again been warned by government officials to avoid incidental ingestion of mercury through products that absorb the toxin from the environment, but the FDA remains deafeningly silent on the far more serious threat posed by the concentrated levels of the same toxic metal that are being injected into our babies through common vaccines.

"The FDA's continued unwillingness to definitively act to remove Thimerosal mercury from vaccines begs the question of how widespread Vas Aposhian's charge that 'industry' dictates FDA policy, not science and safety, should be considered. (W.Post 3/20/04 M.Kaufman.)

"It certainly seems odd that the FDA would issue a warning over the 15 micrograms found in a tuna fish sandwich, when they continue to ignore the fact that during 1990s infants were routinely given nearly five times that amount at one doctor's appointment, and up to 187.5 micrograms of mercury the first six months of life. To this day, our children are injected with nearly double the amount of mercury found in tuna in a single flu vaccine injection.

"This raw data alone-not to mention the exhaustive research SafeMinds has published on the topic- should be enough to prompt a total ban of Thimerosal by the FDA, who has, to date, been apathetic at best on this grave matter."