The U.S. Is Going Backwards on Vaccines, Very Fast

The Atlantic

America’s vaccine advisory committee is now taking seriously a baseless anti-vaccine flash point. Vaccine experts in the United States have long considered the case on thimerosal closed. A chemical preservative that stamps out contamination in vaccine vials, thimerosal was removed from most U.S. shots more than two decades ago over worries that its mercury content could trigger developmental delays. But those concerns—as well as baseless claims that thimerosal causes autism—have been proved unfounded, many times over. “We took care of this 20 years ago,” Kathryn Edwards, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University, told me.