Mercury, Vaccines, and Autism
One Controversy, Three Histories
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11039952 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jeffrey P Baker (The author is with The Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC., corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 244-253 |
| Publication date | 2008-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0090-0036 • E-ISSN: 1541-0048 |
| Publisher | American Public Health Association (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2105/ajph.2007.113159 |
| PMID | 18172138 |
| PMCID | PMC2376879 |
| OpenAlex | W2137459999 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 19 |
| References cited | 35 |
The controversy regarding the once widely used mercury-containing preservative thimerosal in childhood vaccines has raised many historical questions that have not been adequately explored. Why was this preservative incorporated in the first place? Was there any real evidence that it caused harm? And how did thimerosal become linked in the public mind to the “autism epidemic”? I examine the origins of the thimerosal controversy and their legacy for the debate that has followed. More specifically, I explore the parallel histories of three factors that converged to create the crisis: vaccine preservatives, mercury poisoning, and autism. An understanding of this history provides important lessons for physicians and policymakers seeking to preserve the public’s trust in the nation’s vaccine system
Autism · Biology · Environmental health · Harm · Mercury (programming language) · MERCURY EXPOSURE · Psychiatry · Public health · Thimerosal · Thiomersal · Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Abuse · Immunology · Medicine · Mercury impact and mitigation studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
Pandemics and Politics
Vaccine hesitancy, vaccine refusal and the anti-vaccine movement
The Vaccine-Hesitant Moment
Adjudicating non-knowledge in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings
Attitudes of East Tennessee residents towards general and pertussis vaccination
Knowledge and Education as Barriers and Facilitators to Nicotine Replacement Therapy Use for Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy
Two centuries of vaccination
Making Common Sense of Vaccines
Credibility battles in the autism litigation
A case of conflicting norms? Mobilizing and accountability information in newspaper coverage of the autism–vaccine controversy
Representations of Womanhood and Disability in Popular Hindi Cinema
Policy Awareness, Financial Hardship, and Work Impact
Mercury, Vaccines, and Autism, Revisited
Emotional Feedback and the Viral Spread of Social Media Messages About Autism Spectrum Disorders
Twitter Communication During an Outbreak of Hepatitis A in San Diego, 2016–2018
Understanding Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal Through a Rights-Based Framework
Vaccine hesitancy and emerging parental norms
Ethical Considerations of Using Narrative to Communicate Science
A Question of Balance
| Unique citing works | 19 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1.06 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2026 (19) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 19 |