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Recommendations Regarding the Public Health Response
Pages 75-81

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From page 75...
... The committee provides recommendations in three areas of public health response: policy review and analysis, public health and biomedical research, and communications. Policy Review and Analysis The committee supports prior decisions by ACIP, AAP, and AAFP to call for the removal of thimerosal from vaccines as a precautionary step in the effort to minimize children's exposure to mercury.
From page 76...
... Therefore, the committee recommends that full consideration be given by appropriate professional societies and government agencies to removing thimerosal from vaccines administered to infants, children, or pregnant women in the United States. However, the committee draws attention to the recent recommendation of the ACIP that high-risk children and women beyond their first trimester of pregnancy during the influ
From page 77...
... Therefore, the committee recommends that appropriate professional societies and government agencies review their policies about the non-vaccine biological and pharmaceutical products that contain thimerosal and are used by infants, children, and pregnant women in the United States. This recommendation is consonant with a recent statement by the Committee on Environmental Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics that advocated reducing mercury exposure in children (Goldman et al., 2001~.
From page 78...
... Furthermore, the committee recommends examining multiple cognitive outcomes, including autism. In addition, because thimerosal poisonings were associated with adverse renal effects, renal outcomes should also be included in the epidemiological, clinical, and basic science studies of thimerosal exposure recommended in this report.
From page 79...
... The committee recommends conducting epidemiological studies that compare the incidence and prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders before and after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines. These studies should focus on multiple renal and cognitive outcomes, including autism.
From page 80...
... Better understanding of these mechanisms would have greatly facilitated the risk assessment of thimerosal in vaccines. The committee recommends research on how children, including those diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, metabolize and excrete metals particularly mercury.
From page 81...
... Given that chelation therapy is not a benign treatment, the committee recommends careful, rigorous, and scientific investigations of chelation when used in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially autism. Although studies of chelation would not be able to link excreted metal specifically with vaccine exposure, and therefore would not contribute to causality assessments, it is important to pursue these uncontrolled clinical observations in order to establish an evidence base for appropriate therapeutic uses of chelation.


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