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> was accused of being [an anti-vaxxer] because they blamed mercury. What the fuck do those even have to do with each other? Also, upvoted for actually postin

by a1369209993 7y ago

> was accused of being [an anti-vaxxer] because they blamed mercury. What the fuck do those even have to do with each other? Also, upvoted for actually posting object-level claims rather than whining about downvotes.

patmcc 7y ago
One of the common anti-vaxxer talking points is about how vaccines are dangerous because they contain mercury.
beering 7y ago
Probably because a lot of the antivax scare was around thimerosal in vaccines (which is a mercury compound). Logic was: mercury is known to be poisonous, thimerosal is a mercury compound, thus vaccines must be poisonous.
- rimliu 7y ago
  I wonder what they think about table salt.
  - makomk 7y ago
    I've seen this analogy a lot from people who think they're obviously much smarter than the antivax idiots. It's completely, horrifically wrong. Much of mercury's reputation for toxicity actually comes from mercury compounds very similar to thiomersal, which are in general a lot more dangerous than the elemental form. Amongst other things, they're the reason that eating large amounts of fish causes mercury and the culprit in the Minamata Bay mass poisoning. You can hold a pool of mercury in your hand with basically no ill effects, but as little as a single drop of one of those mercury compounds on your skin can kill. Now, it turns out that the very small amounts of thiomersal in vaccines were probably safe. This was by no means obvious at the time. Mercury poisoning is nasty - the symptoms can appear long after the initial exposure, range from death to subtle neurological effects like changes in behaviour and loss of IQ, and appear at relatively low exposures. Also, there just wasn't all that much modern research into thiomersal or its metabolite ethylmercury.
roywiggins 7y ago
There's definitely a crackpot subgenre of selling people on expensive chelation that they don't need. The idea of "cleansing" and "detoxing" supplements (which don't really do anything much but maybe make you poop) has bloomed into selling people chelation (which does do stuff, but only if you are poisoned by heavy metals). It's not antivaxx, but it's antivaxx-adjacent, and awful stories like this is what people think of when someone promotes chelation against the medical consensus. https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/autism/1616 https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/autism/1616 That doesn't prove anything about any particular use of it, but that's why people can get very angry when it comes up.

patmcc 7y ago

One of the common anti-vaxxer talking points is about how vaccines are dangerous because they contain mercury.

beering 7y ago

Probably because a lot of the antivax scare was around thimerosal in vaccines (which is a mercury compound). Logic was: mercury is known to be poisonous, thimerosal is a mercury compound, thus vaccines must be poisonous.

rimliu 7y ago
I wonder what they think about table salt.
- makomk 7y ago
  I've seen this analogy a lot from people who think they're obviously much smarter than the antivax idiots. It's completely, horrifically wrong. Much of mercury's reputation for toxicity actually comes from mercury compounds very similar to thiomersal, which are in general a lot more dangerous than the elemental form. Amongst other things, they're the reason that eating large amounts of fish causes mercury and the culprit in the Minamata Bay mass poisoning. You can hold a pool of mercury in your hand with basically no ill effects, but as little as a single drop of one of those mercury compounds on your skin can kill. Now, it turns out that the very small amounts of thiomersal in vaccines were probably safe. This was by no means obvious at the time. Mercury poisoning is nasty - the symptoms can appear long after the initial exposure, range from death to subtle neurological effects like changes in behaviour and loss of IQ, and appear at relatively low exposures. Also, there just wasn't all that much modern research into thiomersal or its metabolite ethylmercury.

roywiggins 7y ago

There's definitely a crackpot subgenre of selling people on expensive chelation that they don't need. The idea of "cleansing" and "detoxing" supplements (which don't really do anything much but maybe make you poop) has bloomed into selling people chelation (which does do stuff, but only if you are poisoned by heavy metals). It's not antivaxx, but it's antivaxx-adjacent, and awful stories like this is what people think of when someone promotes chelation against the medical consensus. https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/autism/1616 https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/autism/1616 That doesn't prove anything about any particular use of it, but that's why people can get very angry when it comes up.