3 ms·
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, thimer
by 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 agoI wonder what they think about table salt.
- makomk 7y agoI'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.