A Message from the Director of Health
Vaccines prevent disease and saves lives. History has proven that vaccines are one of the most safe and cost-effective public health and medical strategies for protecting our communities against debilitating and sometimes deadly vaccine-preventable diseases . A choice not to get vaccinated unnecessarily puts people at risk for numerous diseases that can cause severe complications or even death. When you decide not to get immunized, you put yourself, your children, and others close to you at risk. In communities with low vaccination rates among children, we have seen outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, mumps, whooping cough, and diphtheria.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adheres to vigorous standards of testing before licensing vaccines. Once licensed, vaccines continue to be closely monitored through a national Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System . Yet in recent years, there has been much misinformation about the safety of thimerosal in vaccines. With the exception of some influenza vaccines, none of the routinely recommended childhood vaccines provided in Rhode Island or nationally contain thimerosal, a form of mercury and a preservative once used in vaccines to prevent contamination . The public health message regarding mercury is a difficult message to deliver because not all mercury is the same. On one hand, we warn people that mercury is harmful and they should avoid environmental exposures to mercury through things like broken thermometers and fish. On the other hand, we say that influenza vaccines containing thimerosal are safe. It is important to point out that thimerosal, the preservative used in some flu vaccines to prevent bacterial contamination, is ethyl mercury. The issue of mercury's harmful and cumulative effects on health is due to a different form of mercury called methyl mercury, not ethyl mercury. Methyl mercury is found in soil and water, and nearly all methyl mercury exposures in the U.S. occur through eating fish and shellfish.
The Institute for Vaccine Safety lists the numerous sound and scientific studies proving there is no evidence that the thimerosal contained in some flu vaccines causes any risk to health. Leaders in the field of public health, and such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Public Health Service, and the nation's physicians (e.g., the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and American Academy of Family Physicians) continue to recommend vaccines for children, adolescents and adults to prevent disease.
I encourage anyone with questions or concerns about vaccine safety to contact their health care provider or the Rhode Island Department of Health Information Line at 1-800-942-7434 and use only the most credible Internet sources when seeking information about vaccines. Below are a few web-based resources containing helpful information.
Childhood Immunization Support Network
CDC: Vaccine Safety Information
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Vaccine Education Center
Immunization Action Coalition: Vaccine Safety Information
Institute for Vaccine Safety
