Why Is Aluminum In Vaccines, Anyway?

Esther is an "American-born, Israeli-raised, part-time family physician, wife to my wonderful DH the IT specialist, and mommy to 3 children (2 boys, 1 girl)."  Her blog, Mainstream Parenting,looks at some of the facts behiins some parenting fads, such as "attachment parenting".

So What's the Deal in Aluminum in Vaccines Anyway? Part I

There is one thing on the subject of aluminum that Sears and I agree upon, so I might as well say it right up front: there is an acute need for more research, specifically regarding the pharmacodynamics of intramuscular aluminum administration in humans and determining the toxic threshold for IM injections. This doesn’t mean aluminum should be held guilty until proven innocent; however, the research would be considerably easier to carry out than the thimerosal studies, we (by this I mean the scientific/medical community) owe it to the public to have this more precise knowledge, and the concept of aluminum becoming “the new thimerosal”, as Sears likes putting it, badly needs to be nipped in the bud. I’ll be discussing this issue in more detail towards the end of this blogpost. In the meantime, let’s look at what is already known.

So What's the Deal in Aluminum in Vaccines Anyway? Part II

if you think anything less than perfect knowledge isn’t enough, consider the information we have about the safety of medicines during pregnancy and nursing, which doctors (and “natural” parents) use every day: most of what we know in that field is a result of animal experiments and empirical evidence of harm (or lack thereof), not detailed toxicological studies or randomized controlled trials.

As I said in Part I, even though all signs indicate the amount of aluminum in vaccines is entirely benign, the research in humans still needs to be done. It’s technically feasible, though probably extremely costly, to take a bunch of babies, give them the full course of vaccines specially made so their aluminum adjuvants contain 26Al, and subject them to either regular urine samples and needlesticks (essentially, what Pichichero did with thimerosal), or/and periodical total-body scans to see which organs picked up the labelled aluminum. I’m not sure I’d volunteer my baby for such a lengthly ordeal, especially since the babies would probably need to be sedated regularly (perhaps with chloral hydrate) for the scans.

So now you have one doctors opinion.

Comments

[Esther]

Thanks for the plug, Liz! :)