But thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines by 2001, and has, in any case, never been found to cause autism or any other negative health effect. (Kennedy, in this instance, did acknowledge that there are two different kinds of mercury, but insisted there’s no real difference between them, that ethylmercury lodged in the brains of monkeys in a lab test, and that anyone who might say there is a difference between the two kinds of mercury is a pharma shill.) In reality, methylmercury is much more commonly encountered in the environment, for instance when eating fish or shellfish, whereas ethylmercury primarily appears in thimerosal, a preservative that has been used in some childhood vaccines. As ever, he conflated ethylmercury, which is not considered hazardous to human health, and methylmercury, which is considered dangerous in even small doses.
Kennedy also trotted out one of his favorite talking points, that vaccines contain a dangerous form of mercury-something he says a lot.
