How much mercury exposure results from vaccines?
In Australia, thiomersal has been removed from all routine childhood vaccines since 2000. The exception is one type of Hepatitis B vaccine which contains a greatly reduced amount of thiomersal (see Table 1 below). When thiomersal-containing vaccines were being used before 2000, the maximum number of doses of thiomersal-containing vaccines a 6 month old child might have received was as follows: 3 doses each of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine, 3 doses of hepatitis B vaccine, and 3 doses of Hib vaccine. This would have resulted in a total intake of 175 µg of ethylmercury, which is equivalent to about 1.9 µg/kg body weight per week, for an average-sized baby. This level is well below the World Health Organization (WHO) limit for methylmercury discussed above. Two studies measuring mercury levels in the blood in infants given thiomersal-containing vaccines have indicated that their blood concentrations of mercury did not rise above designated levels, except possibly transiently in a pr
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