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 * Thimerosal Controversy Talk: Temporary Working Archive


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 * Food_for Thought re Thimerosal

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Editor's Note(s)
This page has been repeatedly removed from search engines results (unindexed from Google, etc.)by individuals opposed to nuanced, non-polarizing conversations about its core topic. - Seipjere (talk)

And – fyi : – been unable to recover this account for a while. (My old email and password were compromised in a hacked data-dump, and the reset notifications almost certainly redirected.) - Seipjere2 (talk) 17:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Seipjere's Wikivalues
• good editing

• plain language, well used

• earnest attempts at truth telling

• charitable assumptions, guided by good sense

• contributors who understand that “perfect” is often the enemy of better (re. an article's development)

Food for Thought re Thimerosal

 * PLEASE NOTE : Any/all grammatical corrections to archival posts are in perenthesis with an asterisks. (e.g.*)
 * PLEASE NOTE : Any/all grammatical corrections to archival posts are in perenthesis with an asterisks. (e.g.*)


 * PS : Largely a self taught writer -- whose grammar has improved DRAMATICALLY.


 * My apologies in advance for such abysmal, unapologetic math-and-science kid grammar. (And for having to leave almost all archival grammatical errors in place for the sake of transparency.*)


 * Seipjere2 (talk) 17:56, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

published temporarily, in accordance with wikipedia's 5th pillar (to help forge a reasonable consensus on a contentious issue) 1. Based on the 0.1μg/kg /day EPA infant methylmercury (seafood) limit, and the US vaccine loads (Ball 2001), the average US baby vaccinated between '91 and '01 was significantly over exposed. [ The average exposure was 62.5μg or 75μg of ethyl-Hg on each of the 3 or 4 days of the schedule --often beginning on the first day of birth -- and 187.5 (average) by 6 months; while the total 6 month cumulative infant methyl max for the average sized baby is just 98.4μg. [( 0.1 / kg / day X 182 days = 18.2μg / kg ) multiplied by average baby weights (roughly 3.21 kg at the end of the first week of birth, and 7.60 kg at 6 months) gives a crude daily average of 5.41 kg, and a reasonable safety max of 98.4μg]]

2. Meanwhile, Thimerosol rapidly dissociates to ethylmercury in the blood, and Ethylmercury, a) readily crosses the blood-brain barrier -- and b) forms a disproportionately large amount of inorganic mercury (Hg1+) in brain tissue. i.e. 2 to 3 times more (Hg+*) than a similar amount of orally ingested methyl mercury (on which the infant safety standards are based.) [ Burbacher 2005, and Magos 1985] 3. There's plenty of sound reasons to suspect inorganic Hg(2+ / 1+) of a primary role in many common organic Hg poisonings (chronic and acute.) e.g. it's strong bonding attraction, larger inflammation response, extremely slow detox (if any, from sick brains), and the commonly observed long latency period between peak organic poisoning and peak symptoms and / or death. (As suggested in Weiss 2002 and exhaustively investigated in Mutter 2010) { ps: Inorganic Hg (I and II) forms in the brain from the breakdown of both ethyl and methyl mercury, and the best research to date (Burbacher 2005 and Vahter 1995) suggests an optimal healthy-primate detox half-life of 120 to >550 days for (inorganic brain Hg*), compared to just 37 to >57 days for methyl (organic, fish) brain Hg. ps2: It's probably worth noting that a significant common thread between inorganic Hg(2+/1+*) and other widely accepted contributing causes of degenerative brain disease (concussions, poor lifestyles, etc.) is excessive and prolonged inflammation.} Seipjere (talk) 14:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC) [last revision]


 * Hello Seipjere, your fellow Canadians from the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics prove to be helpful! Search "Retrograde degeneration of neurite membrane structural integrity of nerve growth cones following in vitro exposure to mercury" and "How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Degeneration" by Leong, Christopher C. W.; Syed, Naweed I.; Lorscheider, Fritz L.CA Yankhadenuf (talk) 18:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * PS Just saw this today "Vaccine Industry Watchdog Obtains CDC Documents That Show Statistically Significant Risks of Autism Associated with Vaccine Preservative Thimerosal. Biochemist Brian Hooker, scientific advisor to A Shot of Truth, reveals CDC knew of risks for over a decade." Charlotte, NC (PRWEB) February 19, 2014 Yankhadenuf (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Thimerosal Controversy Talk: Temporary Working Archive
Note: The following conversations are from the archives of the Thimerosal Controversy Talk page.

The evidence favours a link | 16:06, 11 July 2012‎
>>According to a recent article which forms the most in depth review of the literature on heavy metal toxicity and autism to date: "To summarize, of the 58 empirical reports on autism and heavy metal toxins, 43 suggest some link may be present, while 13 reports found no link. Even with the tendency for null results not to be reported, it cannot be said there is no evidence for a link between heavy metal toxins and autism: although the question may still be open-in sum, the evidence favors a link." -- Mary Catherine DeSoto and Robert T. Hitlanby; Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis, vol 70, No 2, pg 172, 2010; FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://www.ane.pl/pdf/7021.pdf (last retrieved: April 14th, 2012.) ps: To anyone who would advance the collective effort to better understand autism: Perhaps you should first try to befriend, and understand, at least one full-blown autistic person (of which there are tens of thousands). And until you've had success with that (in your heart of hearts) perhaps you should keep your uninformed opinions (and / or stifling editorial stances) on an appropriately short leash. (This article currently reads like it was prepared by Eli-Lilly's defence council; which, given their actions with the US homeland security bill, is actually not nearly as far fetched as I would like to believe.) << Seipjere (talk) 19:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that knowing an autistic person, or being a parent to an autistic child, is a requirement for scientific analysis of data. In fact, like surgeons, having an unemotional detachment from the analysis will be a foundation for a more unbiased review of data. It is pretty annoying that you would think any editor here is uninformed. I am not uninformed, and, in fact, quite knowledgeable about both the science behind neurodevelopmental disorders along with vaccines. I have only made one edit to this article, which was promptly reverted for strange reasons, yet I find this article quite neutral, accurate, and well-source. As for the article above, I will have to make three points. First, DeSoto is supported by the Age of Autism, and anti-vaccination group. Second, she is a psychologist, with little or no training in pharmacology, biochemistry and meta-analyses. Third, it is published in a low impact journal. However, if you feel that it adds anything to this article, I would suggest you assume good faith on the parts of all editors, write a balanced sentence or two that accurately states the position of this article with respect to the hundreds of other articles that do not support this point of view, and add it to the article. If you're just going to write "All the other citations are rubbish, and this represents the One Truth™," I believe the color of your statement will cloud any neutrality. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 20:05, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

>>I repeat: THE PREPONDERANCE OF PRIMARY EMPIRICAL DATA HAS FAVOURED THE HEAVY METAL AUTISM HYPOTHESIS. Accordingly, I believe both this article (and thimerosal's parent article) should reflect that fact. (After reading DeSoto & Hitlanby I believe the vast majority of readers would find them to be thorough in their research, concise in their writing, comprehensive in their scope, and cautious with their conclusions. In fact, I believe more people would take issue with the degree of caution with which their conclusions (seem*) to have been tempered than with any other aspect of their writing.) Taking DeSoto & Hitlanby at their word (as I believe we should) we can conclude that (there*) are at least 43 independently published peer-reviewed primary data sets (as of 09-10) to indicate that the tone of this article is presently inappropriate (and only 13 which suggest otherwise). Therefore, it's fair to say that it should be rebalanced (in it's entirety) appropriately. Ps (1): IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JUDGE FOR YOURSELF (re. DeSoto & Hitlanby, and the 43 datasets they evaluated and I referenced) THE FULL PUBLICATION (and bibliography) CAN BE READ HERE: http://www.ane.pl/pdf/7021.pdf (2): I stand by my earlier comments, (though I apologize if I offended anyone, that was not my intention. It's just that for many of our friends and neighbours, at the centre of this discussion, the only chance they have at being better understood is us; personally, I believe this fact should be taken to heart). (3): Remember: Being wrong feels like being right (until you've learned your lesson).<< Seipjere (talk) 00:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually the preponderance of medical data debunks the assertion. Sorry. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 00:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think this particular source will be useful for us, per WP:WEIGHT, we can't use an article from a low impact Polish journal to dispute the overwhelming consensus that thiomersal does not cause autism (as evidence by the IOM, WHO, etc). Yobol (talk) 01:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm more troubled that the author is an Age of Autism shill, but we can't judge an article based on the biases of the author. Unless we can?SkepticalRaptor (talk) 01:10, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Anyone who has followed this controversy will recognize the authors as having published a controversial paper about thiomersal before as well. The association of the authors is certainly a red-flag, but we don't need to get into those weeds here; introducing this paper as a counterweight against scientific consensus is a clear violation of WP:WEIGHT. Yobol (talk) 01:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll be critiquing that article off-wiki when I discuss the anti-vaccine crowd. Very useful. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 02:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That's really a terrible paper; aside from coming from dubious authors in a low-impact journal, the method of 'counting papers that agree with us' is a dreadful method by which to perform a meta-analysis. Real meta-analyses actually aren't shy about evaluating the studies they include, assigning appropriate weights to different types and qualities of evidence, or – for that matter – even basic things like presenting a list of the studies that were included in their counts. DeSoto and Hitlanby's analysis would assign exactly the same weight to a single-patient case report as it would to a properly-blinded, thousand-patient, multicenter, longitudinal study. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. After reading the paper, it seems that either the authors are unaware of how to conduct a serious systematic review, or else the paper is simply intended to impress a scientifically unsophisticated audience. It speaks poorly for the authors, the peer reviewers, and the journal in which this was published. MastCell Talk 04:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The two of you sound like your expectations were somewhat higher than mine. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 04:07, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, I suspect that the paper entirely met our expectations. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:18, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * "“A lie gets halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on.” - Winston Churchill"


 * On the subject of DeSoto and Hitlan’s earlier (2007) “questionable” review of the flawed 2004 Ip et al Autism Spectrum Disorder children's mercury-blood study


 * The data in question is from the first published study comparing blood mercury levels of Autistic Spectrum Disordered (ASD) children with a control group (‘Ip et al 2004’).


 * The data was based on 7 year old kids (in Hong Kong) and the original study [foolishly] concluded that, quote: “there is no causal relationship between mercury and as an environmental neurotoxin and autism.” [sic] - Ip et al 2004.


 * It was cited 9 times as ‘definitive’ by a number of early pro-thimerosalers (if you will - Eric Fombonne, Paul Shattuck, and others) long before the data had been released or any of the ‘results’ confirmed.


 * In 2007 DeSoto and Hitlan noticed, based on the limited published results, that the published p value was grossly incorrect. (It was skewed in favour of Ip et al's would be conclusions.)


 * They (D&H) wrote to the publisher’s editor (Roger Brumback, Journal of Child Neurology) and after a couple of corrections (by both the journal and the secondary author of the study) the raw data was published.


 * Subsequently, it became embarrasingly clear that practically the entire data-set had been skewed in favour of their (Ip et al's) conclusions.


 * So, DeSoto and Hitlan published [http://www.hbotnm.com/BloodHg.pdf a short re-analysis (the only peer reviewed published analysis of the corrected data to come of the flawed study).


 * And even though it’s terribly inconvenient for many to admit (i.e. ‘epiwonk’, Frombonne, Shattuck...), basically - compared to practically everyone else - DeSotto&Hitlan got it (Ip et al) right; while everyone 'following the controversy’ didn’t.


 * Here’s a few quotes from D&H's more respectable pseudonymous detractor, 'epiwonk', (an emotionally biased ex-CDC senior prenatal / childhood disease epidemiologist, who was paid to man the US's child safety switch through the late 90s and early 2000s, and who, in his retirement, has courted a myriad of sheeple blogosphere followers):


 * On the subject of the Ip study (i.e. the corrected data)


 * "'The first thing I always do — and I always told my students to do this — is to actually LOOK at the data. … Is there a difference between these two distributions? And how would we characterize the difference? It looks like the main difference is that the ASD cases have more mercury blood values at the upper end of the distribution than do the controls. By ‘the upper end of the distribution’ I mean values greater than 25 nmol/L. In fact, that’s just what’s going on. Of the 54 controls, there were only 5 children with blood mercury levels greater than 25 (and the greatest value was 42). Of the 81 ASD cases, there were 21 children with values greater than 25, with 4 values between 41 and 45 and a high value of 59.' ..."


 * and one of his better conclusions (again on Ip):


 * "... “Shattuck should never have cited Ip et al. as a recent study that “failed to establish a connection between [mmr] vaccination or the use of mercury-based vaccine preservative and autism.” Fombonne et al. should not have cited Ip et al. as a biological study of ethylmercury exposure that “failed to support the thimerosal hypothesis.” [sic]"


 * Footnote


 * the more recent CHARGE study results (which have been widely purported to have “put the final nail in the coffin of the mercury hypothesis” - the strongest of the 13 studies on the other side of D&H’s 2009 ledger) is also sort of meaningless.


 * i.e. The question / subject of inorganic mercury brain burdens (and how they seem to bare little or no relation to long-term mercury blood levels) was -- has thus far been, thoroughly overlooked.
 * All the best, respectfully yours, Seipjere (talk) 15:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * This talk page is for improvement of the article, not argument about the subject. - Yobol (talk) 16:06, 11 July 2012‎ (UTC)

Exposures; 2004 IOM report | 07:57, 26 July 2012
Note: This conversation is from the archives of the Thimerosal Controversy Talk page. While trying to get to the bottom of the science on DeSoto & Hitlan’s 2007 review paper (re the corrected Ip et al 2004 data-set [re. the 'discussion' underway in the Evidence Favours A Link section of this page] I was reviewing the US Immunization Safety Review Committee’s final (8th) ‘Vaccines and Autism’ (2004) report and on page 39; here's what we find: "'Recommended limits on methylmercury exposure: EPA: 0.1 μg/kg body weight/day; ATSDR: 0.3 μg/kg body weight/day; FDA: 0.4 μg/kg body weight/day; WHO: 3.3 μg/kg body weight/week' - Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism page 39 pdf (and) html here" AND, Directly above we find this: TABLE 1 [ Upper Portion ] Estimated Exposure to Mercury from Vaccines in United States in 1999 and in 2004 ( [Infants] <6 months of age) TABLE 1 [lower portion] Estimated Exposure to Mercury from Vaccines in 1999 and in 2004 ([Infants]< 2 years of age)

???????? So, based on the 0.1 μg/kg of body weight/day EPA limit the average baby who got their shots between 1991 and 2003 (who would have had either 62.5 μg or 75 μg of mercury on each of the 3 or 4 days of their vaccine schedule) would have to have weighed either 312.5 kg (687.5 lbs) or 375 kg (825 lbs) to be EPA safe!! [NOTE 1: That's if we treat ethylmercury (thimerosal) as if it were half as toxic as methylmercury (The standards quoted at the top of the section refer to methylmercury; the only study I've looked at on the subject so far (on infant monkeys, in 2005, by Burbacher et al.) actually found that thimerosal contributed significantly more mercury to the brain than a comparable oral exposure of methylmercury. [CLARIFICATION: i.e. significantly more long term (on account of the different ratios, and half lives, of organic Hg to inorganic Hg) Seipjere (talk) 14:47, 28 May 2012 (UTC)] But, unlike the reports authors, I thought I'd be conservative. (If we were to consider ethyl and methyl to be on par with one another those hypothetical babies need to be twice as heavy)] [NOTE 2: The author(s) arrived at their conclusion of "safety" by averaging the total mercury exposures (which are given in bolus / bulk doses) over a 26 week period (No, that's not a typo.) That's like determining that a guy who chugged 14 beers before taking his El Camino for a joy ride wasn't drunk because he hadn't drank anything the previous week (i.e. he only averaged 2 beers a day).] Seipjere (talk) 06:17, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This page is for discussing how to improve the article, not for your own data analysis. That said: there's a reason why it's usually experts who make such an analysis. You're assuming that it's invalid to base the exposure limits on a 26 week period, the expert committee saw it as valid. I'm not a toxicologist so right now I don't know why this was done (perhaps because it takes 26 weeks until all the mercury is excreted?), but there's no reason to give your opinion more weight than that of an expert committee. Actually, there's a policy that says your analysis shouldn't be given any weight, so unless reliable scientific sources say that these limits are wrong, there's nothing to discuss here. --Six words (talk) 07:44, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Six words got it all right, but let me give you one simple criticism. The reason you could find only one poorly designed, poorly analyzed (but very popular with the Age of Autism crowd) is because the study shows nothing, and researchers tend to dismiss badly designed studies. You also are guilty of confirmation bias, only finding the one lame study that supports your POV, but ignoring the dozens of others that show that you're hypothesis was nullified. But Six words is right. You are providing original research which is deprecated on Wikipedia. Find something, discuss it, and maybe we'll include it. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 19:42, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps context regarding the amount of mercury could be provided in light of the 1991 memo from renowned vaccinologist Maurice Hilleman to the head of Merck's vaccine division, Dr. Robert Gordon. This memo was acquired by the Los Angeles Times in 2005 and was the basis for an article on the subject.  The memo discusses concerns of Hilleman regarding the mercury load, especially on babies receiving a normal schedule of vaccines at the time. Hilleman, who was responsible for the development of more vaccines than any other person then or since, cautioned Dr. Gordon that "if 8 doses of thimerosal-containing vaccine were given in the first six months of life, the 200 micrograms of mercury given, say to an average size of 12 pounds, would be about 87 times the Swedish daily allowance of 2.3 micrograms of mercury for a baby of that size." MisterSquirrel 07:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MisterSquirrel (talk • contribs)  [NOTE: This comment was retrieved from a previously deleted thread (on practically the same topic) which has yet to be addressed by this article. (I've notified MisterSquirrel(talk), and the emphasis added is my own. Seipjere (talk) 19:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC) ]


 * Unless you have something more than original research there is nothing to address. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 21:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The theoretical amount of thiomersal introduced at an early age due to vaccination is already discussed at length in the 2nd paragraph of the "History" section. To say it hasn't been addressed is incorrect. Yobol (talk) 21:08, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing that out to me.
 * The important point here, that seams to have been lost on so many contributors to this article, is that all those guidelines are quite explicit, and strictly speaking, the amount of thimerosal in the typical vaccine schedule grossly exceeded all of them (by large magnitudes).


 * Again: the limits are as follows: "Recommended limits on methylmercury exposure: EPA: 0.1 μg/kg body weight/day; ATSDR: 0.3 μg/kg body weight/day; FDA: 0.4 μg/kg body weight/day; WHO: 3.3 μg/kg body weight/week"


 * So, please explain to me how, when the average shot contained 25μg of mercury, and the average infant weighs next to nothing, and multiple injections were given on the same day (sometimes on the day of birth), "the vaccine schedule for infants did not exceed FDA...ATSDR... or WHO guidelines on mercury exposure"?


 * (as is foolishly stated in this article)


 * [ps: that's a rhetorical question ] - Seipjere (talk) 00:27, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * We don't use our own calculations, we use those from reliable sources, such as the FDA. Yobol (talk) 01:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Tell me something I don't already know.


 * The so called "calculations" (foolishly referenced in the main article) by the FDA, that you defer to, is no such thing.


 * It is, in fact, just a regurgitation of the canned line from the 2004 (8th) IOM report. And thus, it offers no intelligible justification for the creative extrapolations used by it's original author (i.e pro-rating the mercury safety limits, AND averaging the bolus/bulk mercury doses over 6 month, and two year, time frames.


 * (There's nothing 'original' or 'novel' about me pointing this out; it's plain fact.)


 * And, moreover, the FDA document (which is used as the reference in the main article) clearly points out that:


 * "'To address the issue of conflicting methylmercury exposure guidelines, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to study the toxicological effects of methylmercury and provide recommendations on the establishment of a scientifically appropriate methylmercury reference dose. Their report concluded that the EPA's current reference dose, the RfD, for methylmercury, 0.1 µg/kg/day is a scientifically justifiable level for the protection of human health.'"


 * Again, that was 0.1 µg/kg/day.


 * And FYI, there are tens of thousands of 3kg (and under) babies getting 12.5µg (of mercury) flu shots as we speak.


 * (No wonder you don't like calculations.) - Seipjere (talk) 03:07, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * As has been explained to you already, we are not allowed to do our own calculations (i.e. over how many days we calculate each dose is over). When you find an equally reliable source as the FDA we can discuss this further, otherwise this is going nowhere, and I will not waste any more time on this. Yobol (talk) 03:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a venue for editors to expound their personal interpretations of the Institute of Medicine report -- Mastcell (talk) 03:35, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Hatting a part of a talkpage is a particularly pointless thing to editwar over. Stop it. Now, does anybody have any new suggestions - within policy - for improving the article? bobrayner (talk) 18:23, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Sans reliable sources, one editor who continues to use this talk page as their personal forum to push a unsupported idea seems to be a perfect place to hat a part of a talk page. Or did you not read what several responsible editors have said in reply to this one editor? SkepticalRaptor (talk) 21:16, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Seipjere, although I well understand you might have a very strong opinion about the subject, you have to respect that Wikipedia is not a medium for promotion of your research and concepts. Feel free to keep your own blog or website, or even write articles for respectable newspapers and link them here. However, the policy of this website states absolutely clearly that Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought and if you want to contribute here you have no choice but to follow this.  kashmiri 07:57, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Re Gross Errors, Thimerosal's Neuro Toxicity
re gross errors in the following paragraph (from the thimerosal controversy article):
 *  Although the concern for a thiomersal-autism link was originally derived from indirect evidence based on the known potent neurotoxic effects of methylmercury, recent studies show these feared effects were likely overestimated. Ethylmercury, such as in thiomersal, clears much faster from the body after administration than methylmercury, suggesting total mercury exposure over time is much less with ethylmercury. Currently used methods of estimating brain deposition of mercury likely overestimates the amounts deposited due to ethylmercury, and ethylmercury also decomposes quicker in the brain than methylmercury, suggesting a lower risk of brain damage. These findings show that the assumptions that originally led to concern about the toxicity of ethylmercury, which were based on direct comparison to methylmercury, were flawed.[33] 

Although it's true that Ethylmercury (thimerosal) clears faster from the blood and "decomposes quicker in the brain", the result of this rapid clearing and decomposing, according to the best research to date (on monkeys and rats) is the formation of more than twice as much inorganic brain mercury. And because the detox half-life of inorganic brain mercury is exceedingly long compared to methyl / seafood brain mercury -- more than a year for I-Hg++, and 37 to 59 days for methylHg -- the best research we have contradicts the POV that "concerns about the [neuro]tocxicity of thimerosal were flawed". Accordingly, I continue to insist that this flawed and misleading paragraph be deleted. PS: As previously noted, this is readily confirmed by a critical reading of the best empirical sources to date:
 * (1) Magos, 1985.  'Ethyl- and Methylmercury toxicity in rats...' . → Suggests that (i) ethylmercury (and it's Hg+* by-products) are more renal toxic than methylmercury; (ii) that higher (inorganic) Hg+* kidney concentrations are a probable cause of this increased (and lethal) renal toxicity; and (iii) that ethylmercury contributed 3.4 times more I-Hg* to rat brain tissue than methylmercury.


 * (2) Burbacher et al., 2005.  'Blood and Brain Hg Levels in Infant Monkeys' . → (i) Corroborates the Magos rat results with low dose thimerosal in infant monkeys, (i.e. significantly more inorganic-Hg* from ethylmercury in brain tissue – more than twice as much, at least); and (ii), confirms the long inorganic-Hg* half-life times and trends established by Vahter et al 1995 (i.e. That Hg+/²+* really (seems*) to get locked in.)


 * and (3) Weiss, 2002.  'Silent latency in methylmercury poisoning and neurodegenerative disease.' → Reviews a number of cases of organic mercury poisoning, describes how symptoms, toxicity and death generally lag significantly behind the acute exposures (by days, weeks and months); and suggests (quote) "Perhaps the latency period is due to the slow production and accumulation of a toxic metabolite. For example... divalent inorganic mercury." [Hg+/²+*]. If this is true, injected thimerosal would be 2 to 3 times more damaging (long-term) than a comparable amount of ingested methyl mercury.

PPS: With respect to WP:MEDS: [ "Speculative proposals and early-stage research should not be cited in ways that suggest wide acceptance." ; ] Clearly the paragraph in question (along with it's source) is anything but WP:MEDS compliant.
 * All the best, Seipjere

Re Net U.S. Mercury Food Trends, 'RCRA', Biosolids Fertilizer
THE FOLLOWING IS AN ONGOING CONVERSATION AT THE THIMEROSAL CONTROVERSY TALK PAGE. (I'm posting it here, temporarily, to publish my working reply''' .) [ click to skip down ''' ]

neutral reflection on state of research
There are smaller scientific studies supporting the use of chelation agents to treat autism (e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23400264). No matter the political implications, the article's view is single-sided, in that it only mentions the failure(s) of the larger study from the US about the efficiency of DMSA, but not the results from other comparable studies outside of the US. Please correct this. 11:52, 7 October 2013 (UTC)C0NPAQ (talk)
 * The study you've linked to is a primary research study, and therefore not a recommended resource for clinical information on Wikipedia (see WP:MEDRS for our guidelines on sourcing medical information). Wikipedia, wherever possible, relies on high-quality secondary sources (review articles and the like) to characterize and summarize the state of research. We have found that reporting the conclusions of individual primary research studies and small trials tends to make Wikipedia articles vulnerable to cherry-picking one-off reports of favorable (or unfavorable) outcomes and pet theories.
 * Speaking specifically to that paper, it's terrifyingly bad. I am shocked that it received (if it received) institutional review board approval. No controls, for a study covering a very diverse population (wide range of ages, wide range of severities, three different diagnoses). No statistical accounting for multiple comparisons. Significance claimed for changes in miniscule subpopulations in their metal assay. No attempt was made to report on or account for the effects of any concurrent behavioral or other non-drug interventions. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:00, 7 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, let me get a bit deeper into this issue, because what concerns me is only really visible in the greater picture. All the wikipedia articles I have read associated with chelation therapy either explicitly or indirectly claim that a link between an increased heavy metal burden or an increased heavy metal sensitivity in people with ASD is either discredited, entirely unproven or outright wrong. Great effort seems to have been made to only provide hints towards the negative aspects of the practice. Now, ironically, the secondary sources available only focus on general vaccine safety (or are otherwise without proof) and have been sponsored governmentally. But they are all hidden behind pay walls. Those sources are entirely insufficient, if you look at the nature of the subject (is there a link between heavy metal sensitivity and ASD?) and the reviewed topic (are the vaccines safe in the general population?). The primary sources that exists about this subject are on the other hand extremely sparse and experimental. That circumstance was even misquoted in some other article, from a secondary source, to outright assert that 'the heavy metal theory' has been disproven. So the cherry picking that has been occurring in wikipedia was done by ignoring that: 1. there is an extreme sparsity of research, 2. using pay-walled sources and only remotely related subjects to make claims about a vastly unresearched and only loosely implied issue, 3. ignoring that the research we have (however sparse) points in the entirely opposite direction.
 * I have read the paper and it is pretty normal for a small pilot study in some non-western country. It doesn't claim to be overly thorough, all it did was to investigate heavy metal levels in people with ASD and if it could help to lower them (no wonder). I mean, it were 44 people and you are shocked about the lack of control groups? There are very similar studies with negative results, but overall they tend to gravitate towards a positive finding. Needless to say, there are zero large studies which discredit the whole issue. That should be properly reflected, not only in this article which does in fact mostly deal with vaccine safety. 01:30, 8 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by C0NPAQ (talk • contribs)
 * OH, never mind! I just read about the Wikipedia FRINGE policy, which basically states that if there is a controversy about a topic, you must always misrepresent and hide uncertainties and doubt such that the article exclusively favors the mainstream opinion. That explains a lot. Specifically, why all relevant portions about a heavy metal autism link in each and every paper have been left out entirely. Therefore sentences in quoted papers such as "The conclusion is that there are no reliable data indicating that administration of vaccines containing thimerosal is a primary cause of autism. However, one cannot rule out the possibility that the individual gene profile and/or gene–environment interactions may play a role in modulating the response to acquired risk by modifying the individual susceptibility." become "Although the concern for a thiomersal-autism link was originally derived from indirect evidence based on the known potent neurotoxic effects of methylmercury, recent studies show these feared effects were likely overestimated." on Wikipedia. That policy explains any inconsistencies on wikipedia I have ever read. — Preceding unsigned comment added by C0NPAQ (talk • contribs) 02:13, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Not WP:FRINGE in this case, but WP:MEDRS, which is striker in some sense. TippyGoomba (talk) 04:46, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * That policy is almost as outrageous imo. I understand you need rules to keep people from going rampage here, but not at the price of suppressing relevant information. People loosely infer here from huge secondary pay-walled sources all they want, as long as there is some kind of reference involved, entirely ignoring the context that information came from. They cite arbitrary people's opinions, such as the famous 'critics' to support the mainstream one. They only present one side of the coin and leave out the other one. They only quote one part of the sentence (e.g. "The research reviewed here does not support the use of chelation as a treatment for ASD") and leave out the other one (e.g. "However, given the significant methodological limitations of these studies [which were 5 miniature pilot studies], the research ..."). Is this a contest in fabricating binary truths, or what? If you are talking about unresearched and novel ideas, you have to either outright state that you cannot have an informed opinion about this, refuse to talk about it due to the nature of wikipedia or whatever, or just give all the pieces of information available. What you do is to create your own fringe theory, in trying to counteract the other one(s) that deviate from the mainstream assumption. Considering every aspect I mentioned on this page, this is borderline censorship. I don't respect any of your rules if they interfere with holding impartial views, generally or individually, it doesn't matter.
 * I am deeply offended, but it is not only Wikipedias fault. I have been trying to read about heavy metals and autism for almost a month now. I have an autism diagnosis and also wanted to know about amalgam fillings. So far, all I have found is extremely inconclusive. Basically what you will find everywhere online either comes from the Dr. Cutler nutjob church or entirely refuses any link to be possible. Now ironically, although mostly nonsensical, the Dr. Cutler nutjobs are methodically /more correct/ than most sources and scientists about the subject. Why? Because Mr. Cutler never made any specific claims, he is being very unspecific. He just proposes a theory and methods which are likely to be true and work just fine (if they apply), but even more so likely to be entirely insignificant to the vast majority of people. Then Joe Average, the scientific illiterate, comes along and does all sorts of pseudo-scientific nonsense. A whole marketing industry builds around Joe, making even more ridiculous claims. But is Joe Average an authority? No. Is the marketing industry an authority? No. And what information comes from the mainstream opinion and their authorities (i.e. certain scientists and professionals, government)? Denial, ignorance and misrepresentation. Doubt is left out, personal opinions are cited as if it were evidence and any hints of correlation or wider possibilities are concealed. Even worse, most often the basis of the whole anti-chelation argument is that the people who practice it are basically nutjobs. But the truth (most likely) is, we have no real clue about it all. That should be the mainstream opinion. Instead it is A vs B and the most striking feature about B is to make the greatest effort to deny, ignore and misrepresent. That doesn't look very credible to me and probably it didn't look credible to the people migrating to the nutjob category either. What do I have to do to get an informed opinion about this? Basically, what I did resort to is to entirely ignore the articles and read all the primary sources myself, if they aren't pay-walled (So far, I would have needed probably over 1000 USD to read those). How economic is all that effort? By sheer personal economics, considering the risks, am I not better off going with the nutjobs and just doing some trial and error on chelators myself? Yes I am. That is probably the sad end-result to most of this whole fringe theory vs anti-fringe fringe theory behavior. When opinions are /made to be/ binary, you will always be wrong. And that your policies support those nonsense trends it is just deeply offensive to me. Almost always, wikipedia is the place to go to get the most impartial information. But I guess you should put a big warning sticker on your logo, that all information about vastly unresearched but controversial subjects may be heavily biased by policy. I for one did not know (always attributed it to bad quality of the article) and will be more cautious from now on. 11:04, 8 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by C0NPAQ (talk • contribs)


 * (Bravo CONPAQ!!)


 * As far as I can tell the strongest line of credible evidence that is said to invalidate an Autism–Heavy-metals hypothesis is the "thimerosal was removed but autism increased" epidemiology.**


 * And the only reason this is so, is, to my knowledge, because no scholars have publicly questioned the epidemiological elephant in the room: i.e. What if there's a larger upward trend in heavy-metal (food) exposures? i.e. What if the reason autism rates haven't come down is because thimerosal was (is) just one part of a much bigger (neuro-bio-toxicants—food-chain) problem??


 * There's actually plenty of sound reasons to suspect that this is, in fact, the case... (And there's one huge contributor to the problem that almost no one (seems*) to be aware of — that just so happens to correspond, eerily, with ASD rates...)


 * (**Every other significant argument that I'm aware of lends itself equally well to strong countervailing literature.)


 * (Again, don't shoot the messenger:) The article is deeply flawed, and the "reviews" (media) that it cites as authoritative are, in fact, canonical examples of groupthink (all the best, respectfully) Seipjere (talk) 16:45, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * That is an interesting hypothesis that could be tested in a number of ways. We look forward to your peer-reviewed research on this topic. In the meantime, please don't use this talk page as a chat forum for you to share your personal speculations. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:01, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Ten, ever heard the expression: Lead by example?


 * Drop the lawyerly b.s. --- that presumes a discussion about net mercury trends is somehow inappropriate on a talk page about a controversy whose core scientific argument depends entirely on answering that question.


 * Seipjere I do not agree with your line of conclusions at all. That autism rates are increasing is only a correlation which mostly, and currently best, is explained by changes in culture and social behavior. I researched heavy metal exposures, etc in history. The bigger trend is that all the negative influences of industrialization and environmental health hazards, such as e.g. lead mercury and asbestos, were heavily reduced in the 80s. We now live in a much more cleaner environment. Regardless this doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense for people who have a family history of autism to discriminate against heavy metal exposure from food and vaccines, because there is zero evidence that discredits the sparse scientific findings that there is a subgroup of autistic people who are sensitive to heavy metals. C0NPAQ (talk) 19:56, 11 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Conpaq,


 * I've decided to publish a working draft of my reply on my talk page. (I'll post it here when it's finished.)


 * All the best, Seipjere (talk) 19:58, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Response: Working Draft

 * “People only see what they are prepared to see.” – Ralph Emerson


 * During the over-arching time-line in question (1990 to present)* we began to systematically divert industrial / commercial and household hazardous waste — including mercury — away from our rivers, lakes and oceans, and straight into our agricultural food-chain, via one-size-fits-all sludge (concentrated sewage bio-solids) fertilizer.


 * The standard sewage treatment protocol (from San Diego to Key-West to Newfoundland) separates and concentrates the solid matter – sewage and heavy-metals alike – away from the treated water, and (at least 60% of the time) ships the whole collective kit-and-caboodle — including mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium — straight into the food chain. (Via bio-solids sludge fertilizer.)


 * To whit: [ The U.S. EPA's 'Resource Conservation and Recovery Act' ] ('RCRA' – 1986ish to present) mandates the “beneficial use, reuse, recovery, and recycling of toxic [industrial] waste” by explicitly exempting said waste – including mercury – from environmental regulation.


 * [See the small links at the very bottom of this reply.]


 * It (the RCRA) stipulates — at length — that “fertilizer”, “land application”, and “zinc fertilizers” are all suitable examples of “beneficially recycled” toxic waste.


 * Believe it or not, during the precise epidemiological time-line in question, it's been illegal to seal U.S. mercury in reinforced concrete, but considered "beneficial" (regulation exempt) to spread it on crops — as long as you blend it into a zinc fertilizer, or wash it down the drain to the local sewage treatment plant.


 * *The ban / clamp-down and enforcement of disposal (in rivers, lakes and oceans) began to ramp-up around 1990 (after the Clean Water Act of 1987), and the procession of contaminated sludge fertilizer has continued — and or escalated — ever since.


 * [See the notes at the bottom and the collection of links to investigate, and or illuminate, this trend.]


 * Meanwhile, [the Crux:] the EPA's detailed 2009 Sludge Survey states:


 * (1) the maximum (legal) sludge-fertilizer mercury level is 57,000 micrograms (μg) per kilogram * of fertilizer,


 * (2) 60% of U.S. sludge was used as fertilizer, and


 * (3) the comprehensive sample results published were: Mercury – High: 8300μg/kg fertilizer; Low: 170μg/kg;


 * Lead – High: 450,000μg/kg fertilizer ; Low: 5810μg/kg;
 * Arsenic – High: 49,200μg/kg fertilizer ; Low: 1180μg/kg;
 * Cadmium – High: 11,800μg/kg fertilizer ; Low: 210μg/kg. ...


 * To give you some perspective on those numbers (vis-a-vis the crux of this article's science): The accepted EPA methyl-hg food guideline for infants is 0.1μg/kg  (body weight)  / day;


 * The average thimerosal ethyl-Hg loads were 25μg per shot (now 2ish, 12.5ish, and 25ish)...


 * The 0.1ug/kg/day methyl-seafood infant safety guideline yields a net 6 month – sum-total – Hg exposure safety maximum for the average-sized baby of about 98.5μg...


 * And the EPA's mercury and human health page currently states:


 *  “ blood mercury analyses in the '09-'10 NHANE Survey for 16-to-49-year-old women showed that approximately 2.3% of women had blood mercury concentrations greater than 5.8 micrograms per liter (which is a blood mercury level equivalent to the current RfD). This percentage represents an estimated 1.4 million women of reproductive age who have blood mercury concentrations that may increase the risk of learning disabilities in their unborn children. Based on this prevalence and the number of U.S. births each year [Martin et al, 2012], it is estimated that more than 75,000 newborns each year may have increased risk of learning disabilities associated with in-utero exposure to methylmercury. ” 


 * Notes:


 * The 60% number is a nation-wide U.S. number, from the EPA's '09 sludge survey. (And btw: last time I checked, personally — a few years back — that percentage at my local (progressive Canadian University and manufacturing towns) well-funded treatment plant was >99%.
 * i.e. more than 99% of everything solid that ended-up there – mercury, lead, arsenic, and cadmium alike – was used as fertilizer.


 * Gorospe 2012 (San Francisco) put that Hg-safety number at 17,000μg/kg...


 * [ * quick update note: turns out that one is the 'class a' limit and the other's the 'class b' limit... But, as the 2009 EPA researchers probably knew better than most, without enforcement, and comprehensive soil testing (in every corner of the country...), both of these 'limits' have probably, in practice, amounted to anything but.


 * And besides: Does anyone really find 17,000μg/kg of mercury (the 'class a' limit) a comforting amount of neurotoxin — in fertilzer??? (i.e. At the base of our commercial food chain????)


 * After all, remember: (1) Mercury bioaccumulates (often dramatically) as it goes up the foodchain. And (2) this — in combination with our concentrated, titanic, (corn–soy–wheat–canolla etc) commoditized calorie, agri-business perversion of traditional (difuse, robust) subsistence farming — represents a staggeringly unprecedented seismic shift in chronic mercury (etc) exposures...]


 * biomagnification / bioaccumulation is still a black box with respect to mercury and farming — but it's important to note that tuna mercury-levels (427μg/kg--white / 71μg/kg—light) are the by-product of extraordinarily dilute lake and sea water levels bio-magnified up the food chain. (i.e. one could -- or should expect something similar here.)


 * Check-out Frederick Kaufman's (meandering but sound)  "Wasteland"  (Harpers Magazine, 2008), and Radiolab's (naive, rose-coloured)  "Pooptrain"  (WNYC, 2013), to kick-off an investigation of the larger sewage-for-breakfast epidemiological back-story (1990 to present).


 * And here's a smorgasbord appetizer of related sludge fertilizer material:


 * 'Sewage Sludge' at Sourcewatch.org
 * 'Hazardous Waste in Fertilizer' by Diane Olson Rutter (2003)
 * 3 part Sludge Series, C. Vahnyk, Toronto Star, 2008.
 * "Holding the Bag: Toxic Waste in Fertilizer", 'Washington Toxics Coalition Report', 2001.


 * Thanks for your patience. (ciao for now.) Seipjere (talk) 20:12, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

SOLUTION
SCROLL DOWN (note: the content below has been locked – totally inaccessible to me.)

Please excuse the abysmal lack of any semblance of sound editing.

(My sleep deprived first draft skills have markedly improved, thank God, but writing was never my strong suit.)

🕶️

💘 Seipjere2 (talk) ✌️ —Preceding undated comment added 15:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

re Sewage Sludge, Heavy Metals
UPDATE: In order to fully reckon with this problem I had to first step completely away from all market-driven approaches and spitball a universal solution that worked with minimal change to the status quo.

Published below is that thought experiment, though admittedly I've since moved on to a second non-profit strategy : (back to completely separate treatment - ) a model that asks slightly more of the public but, in exchange, eliminates the problem entirely (from sludge streams and the ecosystem at large).

{ The solution below, again, was just me spit balling in SOLVE-IT-ALL–NOW ( FFS !) mode ... Left up for the sake of posterity and, in hopes it helps put all of the above into perspective. (close to home.) }

- - - - The (One*) solution to that problem (systematic funnelling of toxicants into sewage-sludge fertilizer) -- outlined above -- is actually ridiculously simple. All that's needed is for us to begin to wash our household toxicants -- like, e.g., paint brushes -- on an organized schedule**, so the wastewater treatment plants can, likewise, separate its end product sludge fertilizer into 'food-grade' and non-food grade by-product. ... e.g. When you (or your neighbour) paint your house, you just soak your brushes, rollers and or spray tips in water until the end of the week** --- when you're permitted to wash limited quantities of paint down the drain.** i.e. ... the local treatment plant can easily ensure that (no*) paint contaminated sludge (EVER*) gets used as fertilizer (in the commercial food chain or, any commercial garden soil or fertilizer.*) Seipjere (talk) 03:26, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * e.g. permitted 5pm Friday to 7:30pm Sunday (roughly 30% of the week); prohibited the remaining 7:30 Sunday to 5:30 Friday (70%)??

Seipjere (talk) 03:33, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

last edited 💘 Seipjere2 { 21:22, 13 December 2019 (UTC)} ... And sorry for the long delay, (etc. etc.) 👔💘 Seipjere2 (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2019 (UTC)