Something and somethinger

July 1, 2015 • 11:05 am

by Grania Spingies

There are a whole lot of reasons why people deny truths, and most of them don’t do it out of malice or contempt for humanity. In many cases they truly believe that they are doing the right thing. It is fairly self-evident that many of the anti-vaccine brigade do this because they truly believe they are saving their children from the harm of a callous conspiracy between the CDC, Big Pharma and your local GP. Ignorance may not be an excuse, but it is their reason.

It is pretty hard to win over hearts and minds on these issues, but the best that the pro science-based medicine side can do is to keep on refuting the worst myths and distortions.

But it really doesn’t help when someone with a disproportionate ratio of influence to actual facts gets up on their high horse and spouts forth.

dumb

In text form:

California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped. They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosol is no risk. Make sense? I am not anti-vaccine. I am anti-thimerosal, anti-mercury. They have taken some of the mercury laden thimerosal out of vaccines. NOT ALL! The CDC can’t solve a problem they helped start. It’s too risky to admit they have been wrong about mercury/thimerasol. They are corrupt.

Oy.

dumb-and-dumber-movie-image-jim-carrey-slice

His swipe at the CDC was no doubt in response to people informing him that thimerosal is no longer used in most vaccines any more, and especially not children’s vaccines even though studies have shown to have no evidence of harm at the dosage that was typically used.

The CDC addresses this issue fairly clearly here, and has several papers on the subject available to download and read here. True Believers™ don’t read papers, of course, because they are all a part of the corrupt fascist conspiracy. But people who are genuinely undecided might. This is what the CDC actually says on the subject.

Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative used in some vaccines and other products since the 1930’s. There is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site. However, in July 1999, the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure.

Since 2001, with the exception of some influenza (flu) vaccines, thimerosal is not used as a preservative in routinely recommended childhood vaccines.

The line of “I am not anti-vaccine, only anti-poison” is a favorite refrain amongst the anti-vax advocates in recent years, but Dave Gorski over at Science Based Medicine has taken this claim apart with his usual attention to minute detail. The dangers of failing to vaccinate children is also comprehensively covered here: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/category/vaccines/.

If you see the Carrey rant circulating on your social media platform of choice, maybe help out by adding a useful link to an evidence-based source.

57 thoughts on “Something and somethinger”

  2. I have had amalgam fillings in my teeth for over 60 years. The main source of mercury in the environment is from volcanic eruptions.
    Worry about other poisons such as those from motor vehicles.

    1. Citation needed. It is my information that the biggest source of mercury in the environment is from coal burning power plants.

      1. sub. And that’s why the Supreme Court decision against the EPA should be of much greater concern than vaccinations.

    1. The Truman Show was pretty good, as was The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. But these were where he held back his original style of humor.

      1. I recently saw Burt Wonderstone and disagree. I thought it boring and formulaic. I never watched Truman Show, as the premise never interested me. That was a while back, too. Carrey has much to answer for with “The Number 23.”

        1. I saw The Truman Show a number of years back and thought it good, and a good performance by Carrey, but what caused me to see it was Ed Harris as the show’s director. I can’t think of another Carrey movie I’ve seen – or would want to: Stupid and Stupider isn’t my thing.

        2. Formulaic, I suppose. It is a ‘buddy movie’, but even a formulaic movie can be good in its own right.
          I suppose what is good will be relative.

      2. His first movie (I think), Ace Ventura Pet Detective, was hilarious. Of course, that kind of thing is highly subjective. But, that was easily my favorite Carrey movie. The 2nd Ace Ventura movie wasn’t so bad either.

        I found The Truman Show disturbing, so I’d have to say it was pretty good, and Carrey was pretty good in it. Liar Liar was fair. I’ve never had the slightest interest in any of the Dumber movies.

        1. I did enjoy watching Ace Ventura with my kids when they were young. Otherwise am not much of a Carrey fan, though he wasn’t bad in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was not his usual kind of film.

          1. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but I’ve never gotten around to watching it.

          3. My wife suffered a serious traumatic brain injury in 2005 and was in post-traumatic amnesia (essentially the phenomenon portrayed in Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind) for about six months. There is absolutely nothing good about not being able to remember what happened yesterday. It is a horrible, debilitating, distressing condition, for both the person in question and also for everyone who knows them. I absolutely despise that movie – quite clearly the people who made it did absolutely zero research on the actual effects of loss of long-term memory and what they produced fools people into thinking that something which is a complete nightmare to have to live with can somehow be even some sort of good thing. Bah.

            Rob

            ps she’s much better now and is back at work as a university lecturer.

      1. Man on the Moon was disturbing, and therefore well made.

        I saw Kaufman on TV before he was an icon. In retrospect, the Mighty Mouse gag was comedy doing what cutting edge comedy is supposed to do. Legal, G-rated, and wildly insane.

        1. Thanks for a good retort.

          I hang out at a cooking forum and people show up periodically asking about substitutes for aluminum cookware. They’re not interested in explanations about why aluminum doesn’t cause Alzheimer’s.

          There are some people who still won’t use anti-perspirants because they contain aluminum.

  5. I wonder if Carrey got into the anti-vax nuttery because of his one-time relationship with Jenny McCarthy. But he’s been full-on into it for a while now: “I don’t just play a fool in the movies, I really am one.” Quoting Robert Kennedy Jr. as a source doesn’t help.
    But yay for California, though we’ll probably see a cottage industry of quacks (Jay Gordon, Robert Sears) to whom anti-vax parents take their kids to get a “medical exemption”.

    1. I just wish there was a vaccine for stupidity resulting from having sex with Jenny McCarthy.

  6. Sad. I recently bought Seth Mnookin’s The Panic Virus (have not started reading it yet) and already noticed that McCarthy is mentioned there too. Looking forward to reading the book.

  7. Or suggest that people read Michael Specter’s
    Denialism. He really rakes Carey et al across the coals. Also great chapter on “natural” and “organic” foods, and truth about GMs.

    1. More specifically it is a very good bactericide and fungicide.

      Why is it of use as a preservative? I am not quite sure what you are asking. Chemistry and that’s just the way our reality works.

      1. And it is a microbial preservative that isn’t toxic for animals or gives adverse allergies. [See Grania’s article.]

        I doubt there are very many of those around.

      2. Here is the chemical structure of thimerosal. It contains only a single atom of mercury.
        I expect mercury alone would be preservative and it would be exceptionally stable since unlike organic compounds it cannot break down.

    2. Here’s what the CDC has on the different forms of mercury. The ethylmercury forms as thimerosal is broken down in the body. Ethylmercury does not function as a neurotoxin in the way that methylmercury can and is eventually eliminated from the body: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/thimerosal/thimerosal_faqs.html

      Like many metals, mercury can inhibit enzyme function so my guess is that it inhibits microbial growth (and thus works as a preservative) by interfering with critical bacterial enzymes.

      1. Yes, most likely. My counter question was “now why do you use heavy metals (such as iron, molybdenum, et cetera) in your enzymes”? Proteins evolved precisely because they co-opt metals for function.

        It isn’t the material, it is the quantity that makes a poison. [E.g. don’t try to breath too much water.] Already the greeks new that.

    3. Well, originally it was thought to be of use as a preservative because it stopped people who were being vaccinated for tetanus and diphtheria from dying of Staphylococci infections. This was a big deal in the days before antibiotics. The other important thing about it was that it doesn’t degrade the effectiveness of the vaccines, while most other preservatives do.

      In historical context it made sense as single use doses were prohibitively expensive, and not readily available. We’ve got better manufacturing techniques now, and the cost differential is not so high.

      As far as I know the mechanism by which thiomersal acts as a bacteriostatic hasn’t been specifically worked out. But it is probably the same as for elemental mercury, which inhibits sulfhydryl enzymes by binding to the sulfhydryl groups in the active sites of those enzymes. This includes some proteases, some lipases, and most bacterial tRNA-acyl-synthetases. So it (probably) inhibits bacteria digesting things, and it (probably)inhibits them making proteins.

      1. And thanks for that!

        I hadn’t even thought of vaccines being developed before antibiotics and the resultant infection danger. Such interesting history.

    1. Thimerosal is the preservative. Mercury is just one the elements that make it up. It makes as much sense to ask why we sprinkle Chlorine on our food and drink Hydrogen.

    1. Yep. “Governer Moonbeam”, as he used to be called, is a now a tool for Big Pharma and the jack booted thugs of the American Pediatric Association to hold down our children and inject them with poison.

  11. Small pox has been eradicated. Yeah. I am old enough to remember the hassle about smallpox vaccine.
    I was vaccinated but my father’s relatives were all upset. Everybody knew there was a risk to get vaccinated.
    I feel like this is deja vu all over again.
    Did they use whatever in those old vaccines.

    Nobody even thinks about getting a smallpox vaccination.

    1. Nobody even thinks about getting a smallpox vaccination because vaccination has eradicated the disease (last naturally occurring case 1977) – its only host species is man, and the vaccine has not been given to the general public for many years.
      I remember getting a smallpox vaccination for a foreign trip in 1970 – I could go from New Zealand (where I grew up) to Australia without, but as soon as I wanted to go further it was “no vaccination, no travel”: your vaccination card was checked along with your passport. The US military may still be vaccinating because of the risk of biowarfare, just as they vaccinate(d) against anthrax.
      As for the risk, I think it was small (CDC says 1000 per million serious reaction, 14-52 per million life-threatening reaction, 1-2 per million die), but the death rate for people who contract smallpox is around 270,000 per million (CDC: 90% of cases are ordinary variola major, death rate 30%) – I know what odds I would have taken had I had the choice.

      1. The US doesn’t vaccinate against smallpox. That’s why “I’m old enough…” is a key phrase. Nor does the US generally vaccinate against anthrax, except for some members of the military.

  12. Red ink in tattoos is usually mercury, or some other heavy metal (all probably toxic).Are anti-vax/anti-poison types also anti-tattoo?

    1. A very good point. And I wonder how much mercury was in the salmon steak I had about a week ago too.

  13. I think it was in last week’s This Week in Virology where the hosts pointed out the difference between methyl mercury and ethyl mercury is like the difference between methyl alcohol and ethyl alcohol. One makes you go blind and the other gives you a buzz.

  14. I remember an old johnny carson interview with truman capote. Capote stated that all actors were air heads. Hmmm…jim Carrey seems to be making a good case for capote!! I am pro science. Therefore I am provaccines!!

  15. I remember using mercuric oxide ointment on my eyelids as a child.

    Am a bit worried about Hg in tuna, one of my favs. (Also, why do they put salt in CANNED tuna and other such products? Is the canning process not sufficient? Or do they have an ulterior motive of putting salt in to stimulate the consumer’s appetite and prompt the consumer to eat/buy more?)

  16. I can like Carrey as an actor, but it occurs to me that it would be good, on balance, to now see disinvestment and distancing of Hollywood and other media entities from him. Donald Trump is getting his ass kicked now for being an idiot about illegal immigrants (thumbs up). Tim Hunt has lost a lot for his poorly considered comments (again, I approve but I appreciate that not everyone will agree with the extent of that one).
    But Jim Carrey has used his prominence to potentially cause some real bodily harm. Why should he get off without feeling some pain?

  17. “but the best that the pro science-based medicine side can do is to keep on refuting the worst myths and distortions.”

    This seems to me banging heads against the wall. Beliefs have social functions, and we must understand them in order for change to occur.

    In any case, people are changed by experiences. Having or sharing them is likely to succeed where preaching from the pulpit of truth will elicit yawns at best.

  20. As a child and a tomboy, I had more than my share of scrapes and cuts on my legs, arms, hands and face. I was regularly and profusely daubed with Mercurochrome and suffered no deleterious side effects from it, neither did my brothers and all my friends, despite the high mercury content of that excellent antiseptic. 😀

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