Hair Mercury Concentrations In Korean Infants Could Be Influenced By Thimerosal-containing Vaccines

摘要

The paper by Kim et al. (2008) determining hair-Hg in Korean children (median age of 18 months) clearly included young infants ( < 6 months). They detailed their work according to levels of hair-Hg concentrations and explained children's Hg exposure through fish consumption. While hair-Hg is an acceptable indicator of fish-methylmercury exposure, there is a chance that infants' hair-Hg in their study may also contain Hg-metabolites as a result of immunization using thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCV).rnOver the last 20 years there has been an increase in the number of TCV given to infants (Dorea, 2007) and one of these vaccines, hepatitis B, is given to newborns in the first day of life (Marques et al., 2007b). Given the age of the infants studied by Kim et al., it is possible that the hair samples of the very young ones may have contained not only TCV-Hg, but also ethylmercury (EtHg) derived from mothers using products containing thimerosal during pregnancy; Rh-negative mothers could have taken anti-RhoD immune globulins and may have passed some EtHg to the newborn.