Reply #95: Actually, there are quite a few questions about the legitimacy of the [View All]

[PA Democrat]

Danish study. This from the Congressional record:

"I want to talk briefly about the other four studies that the Institute of Medicine based its conclusions on. The IOM cited the 2003 Hviid study of the Danish population as one of the key studies upon which it based its conclusions. Let us first consider the conflict of interest of the principal author. Dr. Hviid works for the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, which is housed at the Staten Serum Institute, the government-owned Danish vaccine manufacturer. Also, all of his coauthors either work with him at the center or are employed by the SSI.

The SSI, the Staten Serum Institute, makes a considerable profit off the sales of vaccine and vaccine components and the U.S. is a major market for the SSI.

SSI has $120 million in annual revenue, and vaccines are the fastest-growing business segment, accounting for 80 percent of its profits. Both the United States and the United Kingdom are important export markets for SSI's vaccines and vaccine components. Furthermore, if Hviid were to find an association between Thimerosal and autism, SSI, with which he and his center are affiliated, would then face significant lawsuits. These facts are important and are critical when evaluating Dr. Hviid's work. Furthermore, this study looked at autism and not at neurodevelopmental disorders.

The important thing in evaluating this study is that exposure in the Danish population to Thimerosal varied considerably from that in the United States. Danish children received 75 micrograms of mercury in their first 9 weeks of life and then another 50 micrograms at 10 months. By comparison, children in the United States received 187.5 micrograms of mercury by the age of 6 months, nearly 2 1/2 times as much mercury as the Danish population."

http://weldon.house.gov/News/DocumentPrint.aspx?DocumentID=6843