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Dr. Boyd Haley's reply (and more), found on EOHarm@yahoogroups.com, thanks to Lenny Schafer:

Response from Dr. Boyd Haley:

To All: This is the most incredibly ignorant report that I have ever
read. Original research on rabbits done years ago ( RAPID BLOOD TO
BRAIN MOVEMENT OF [203Hg]-THIMEROSAL: Gasset et al. Tetratogenicities
of Opthalmic Drugs. Arch. Opthalomology 93, 52-55, 1975. ) showed
that 75% of thimerosal mercury left the blood in about 6 hours, and
while doing so it increased several fold in the brain, liver and
kidney. Bluntly, most thimerosal leaving the blood is not leaving the
body!!! Rabbits nor infants can pass anything through their bowels
that fast.

This paper also cheers the fact that ethylmercury is not leaving
through the urine and states something to the effect `it appears to be
leaving through the stools', something they decided not to measure.
Bottom line, they again are making conclusions they like, not
conclusions supported by their data. They actually have no idea where
the thimerosal is except that it is not in the blood or urine, routes
that usually contain anything that is being excreted. This
observation explains that the very hydrophobic ethylmercury released
by thimerosal is collecting elsewhere in the infants body.

They also state that "mothers-to- be who ate an average of 12 meals of
fish a week---about 10 times the amount that the average U.S. citizen
eats---showed no harmful symptoms." However, mercury in fish has
already been modified by proteins and selenium in the fish and is
mostly not bioavailable for reacting with the proteins in humans.
This mercury has already reacted and many studies on the toxicity of
methylmercury or total mercury in fish has shown that over 95% is not
bioavailable to cause toxic problems. If the "mothers-to- be" were
injected with, or fed pure methyl mercury at the levels they ate in
fish you can bet they would get sick. Plus, injecting a toxin
bypasses the intestinal protection we have evolved to protect us from
eating or drinking heavy metals as two-thirds of the metallothionine,
a protein which binds and removes heavy metals, is located in the
intestines of humans. Bottom line, Pichichero is comparing
bio-exposed mercury to pure mercury as if they are the same---and they
certainly are not.

This report also states that thimerosal continues to be used in the
rest of the world whereas it was removed from most U.S vaccines in
2001. Where is his proof of that? I have had many mothers tell me
the vaccines offered to their children as late as 2005 still contained
thimerosal as a preservative. How do we believe that even
well-intentioned physicians would buy the more expensive single dose
vaccines for their practices or HMOs, when cheaper thimerosal
containing multi-dose vaccines were available?-- --especially when the
CDC and AAP and FDA are telling each physician that vaccines with
thimerosal are not toxic to infants! Bottom line, it is very unlikely
that thimerosal was not present in many vaccines still being given to
American children in 2005---why not, the CDC and IOM told all
physicians this was safe. This may be why the California Department
of Health based report is misleading as it assumes, as does
Pichichero, that infant vaccines used in the USA were thimerosal free
in 2001----and this is obviously wrong.

Boyd Haley

From Sallie Bernard:

The counterpoint to this study is as follows
(a) half life in blood is 3.5 days - we knew that already from
previous Pichichero study and review by Clarkson several years ago.
(b) Burbacher has shown that pharmacokinetics of ethylmercury and
methylmercury are different and each needs its own assessment. In the
Rochester paper conclusions, they say the same thing. So, where is FDA
or NIH in doing the exhaustive PK studies, to follow up on Burbacher?
Instead, we have another blood study that doesn't tell us anything new.
(c) Burbacher showed that the mercury from thimerosal accumulates in
brain, despite shorter half life in blood, and that the mercury
persists in brain as inorganic Hg. In fact, the amount of persistent
Hg in brain from thimerosal was 2x higher than the amount from an
equivalent dose of Methylmercury. This is the critical information.
The Rochester paper makes a quick reference to Burbacher and merely
states that his study suggests a 2 compartment model is more valid -
mumbo jumbo language that really means Rochester should have looked in
the brain. (But I guess the Argentine government wouldn't like that.)
(d) The Rochester article did not do a 24 hour collection, so they do
not know the total amount of Hg that was excreted by the babies.
Therefore, they cannot comment on how much was retained in the body.
(e) AAP, through Pediatrics (journal) rushed this into release ahead
of the planned pub date. This is no doubt an hysterical response to
the Eli Stone show. The latest ABC news segment on the show has the
actors telling the parents to make up their own minds on the issue.
What kind of subversive suggestion is that?

SEE ATTACHMENT by Ken Stoller where he says this about Pichichero:

Pichichero et al. argued that ethyl mercury administered through
vaccines is eliminated rapidly from the blood and rap-idly excreted in
stool [20]. In this study, only 33 children at age of 2 and 6 month
were used for blood mercury assessment only, thus overlooking
individuals with impaired mercury excretion. Furthermore, blood levels
were obtained days to weeks after vaccination, thus peak levels were
not measured and the Thimerosal dose was much lower than that given
via vaccina-tion in the 1990s. Furthermore, the stool was not examined
to determine if that was where the mercury ended up. Neverthe-less,
the authors concluded, "This study gives comforting reas-surance about
the safety of ethyl mercury as a preservative in childhood vaccines."
This study has already been criticized including possible conflicts of
interest [61,83].

Safe Minds Assessment of the Pichichero Thimerosal Study


Vaccine Conflict of Interest Quotes

Pichichero has acknowledged financial links with Eli Lilly & Company,
the developers of thiomersal and the main target (to date) of US
autism litigation. In an article back in April 2000 in the American
Academy of Family Physicians newsletter, Dr. Pichichero made the
following disclosures of interest: he had received research grants
from Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Sqibb Company, Eli Lilly
(note), Merck, Pasteur Merieux Connaught, Pfizer Laboratories, Roche
Laboratories, Roussel-Uclaf, Schering Corporation, SmithKline Beecham,
Upjohn, and Wyeth-Lederle. [July 2004] MMR and Acquired Autism
(Autistic Enterocolitis) - A Briefing Note by David Thrower

This was also sent to me:

"Michael Pichichero, M.D., professor of Microbiology/ Immunology,
Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Rochester and the study's
main author" Co holder of patents on numerous vaccine along with the
U of R.