Exclusive-US conditions funding to global vaccine group on dropping mercury-based preservative from shots

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Yahoo! News/Reuters

Wed, January 28, 2026 at 1:07 AM EST


LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has told global vaccine group Gavi to phase out shots containing the preservative thimerosal as a condition of providing the group with funding, a U.S. official and a Gavi spokesperson told Reuters. The request, which Reuters is the first to ​report, is the latest sign of efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to influence health policy globally.

Anti-vaccine groups, including one founded by ‌U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have for decades claimed that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines, is linked to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, despite many studies showing no related safety ‌issues.

In June last year, Kennedy cut $300 million in annual funding for Gavi, which helps the world's poorest and lower-income countries buy vaccines to prevent diseases such as measles and diphtheria. Kennedy, who has long promoted anti-vaccine views contrary to scientific evidence, says the group ignores safety issues with the immunizations it provides. Gavi says vaccine safety is its utmost concern.

“Until a plan for removal of thimerosal-containing vaccines is developed and the plan initiated, the United States will withhold future new funding,” an official for the U.S. Department of ⁠Health and Human Services told Reuters.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/exclusive-us-conditions-funding-global-060745675.html

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From the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) - Fact Checked: Vaccines Do Not Contain Fetal Cells, Thimerosal

Key Facts

(snip)

THIMEROSAL: Since 2001, thimerosal has been removed from all routine childhood vaccinations in the U.S. Some influenza vaccines still contain thimerosal, a preservative that contains ethylmercury. Several valid scientific studies have shown there is no link between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism.

(snip)

[Solly Mack]

1. How many people can the Trump regime kill? As many as they can.

They just keep creating the conditions for people to die and they'll get away with it.

[Scrivener7]

2. I was thinking, "Didn't this happen decades ago??" And then you answered my question. What assholes they are.

[jmowreader]

3. Only multidose vaccine vials contain thimerosal

Single-dose vials haven't contained it in a very long time.

This is a huge issue for someone like Gavi because they're far more likely to be doing mass vaccination campaigns and need vaccine in big bottles.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. To nitpick, thimerosal does not "contain ethylmercury" -- that would suggest a mixture, from which "ethylmercury" might

Last edited Thu Jan 29, 2026, 04:33 AM - Edit history (1)

simply separate. The nomenclature "ethylmercury" for what is actually diethylmercury is unfortunate, but deeply embedded in the language due to use by non-chemists, and obsolete nomenclature among chemists, particularly in industry. Diethylmercury, like other dialkylmercurys, is hightly toxic, and can diffuse through the skin. It is NOT added to any drugs or other products, though back in the 30s(?) and 40s it may have been used to kill microorganisms in certain settings; more usually, a derivative such as ethylmercury chloride (EtHgCl) was used. This use was banned after some poisoning events where EtHgCl-treated grain meant for planting was consumed by humans or pigs.

The compound (not mixture) used as an antibacterial and preservative is ethylmercurithiosalicylate, containing an ethylmercury group (with a +1 formal charge) bound to a water-soluble organic sulfide via a Hg-S bond. Mercury tends to form tight bonds with sulfur; cinnabar (HgS) is one of the least soluble salts known (Solubility 1.04×10⁻²⁵ g/100 ml water (K_sp at 25 °C = 2×10⁻³²)*). Thiols used to be referred to as "mercaptans" because of their ability to "capture" sulfur, which is why a raw egg (rich in thols and sulfide) is recommended as first aid in the event of ingesting mercury or its compounds. As the rest of the thimerosal molecule is metabolized, the ethylmercury cation can become separated, but tends to form the chloride salt (abbrec. EtHgCl) due to the strong Hg-Cl bond and the ubiquity of chloride in biological systems. The half-life for excretion of mercury from thimerosal is relatively short.

It would appear that the inventor of thimerosal made quite a lucky hit when he discovered this compound -- it's certainly conceivable that a randomly chosen organomercury compound would be horribly toxic, with all kinds of bad side effects, but despite decades of searching for bad effects due to low doses of thimerosal, none seem to have been found (in absurdly high doses, it is known to be quite toxic -- after all, if it didn't at least kill bacteria, it would be useless, so of course it has some toxicity). On the other hand, I don't know what other alternatives might have been tested -- if the methylmercury derivative had been used, instead of the ethylmercury one, the compound would certainly have been more toxic. In fact, many of the fears about thimerosal are based on extrapolation of data from methylmercury derivatives, and apparently have contributed to allowed exposures being set lower than necessary -- i.e. early estimates of thimerosal toxicity were probably too high.









* 10⁻¹² would be one trillionth. 10⁻²⁵ is 100 octillionths. i.e. these are very, very tiny numbers.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. Superscripts (and subscripts) are now supported in the current DU4

using [ sup ] superscript [ /sup ] tags (remove the spaces next to the brackets). The "Show tips" button reveals all the past and new formatting tags.

So you get -

(Solubility 1.04×10²⁵ g/100 ml water (Ksp at 25 °C = 2×10³²)

Mercury (once commonly called "quick silver" ) is nasty anywhere, but who knows how many in the past used to "play with it" since it is literally a metal that is liquid at room temp. Was also once used in dental fillings and has been generally removed from thermometers (although standard pressure readings still reference "inches of mercury" or "millimeters of mercury" and some mercury thermometers are still around for scientific and not consumer use).

(as a retired chemist myself )

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Thanks ! I wish that had been announced when it happened. I might have missed it. I was quite used to sup and sub ...

when it disappeared after the Election Day Hack Attack. Now I wonder how long it's been working that I didn't know about ... I used to try typing sup or sub to see if they had been restored, but gave up after a while.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. EarlG usually has pinned threads in the DU Community Help group

The one with the new features is here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/125622743

What *I* miss are the old HTML formatting tags for font type/size/color and being able to create tables! I loved that DUer "Make7" always updated a thread on post formatting tips.

They did get highlighting (yellow) back, which helps!