[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 41 (Monday, March 29, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1614-H1615]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    VACCINATIONS CONTAINING MERCURY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burgess). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 
minutes.

[[Page H1615]]

  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to my 
colleagues, if they have children or grandchildren, pay attention to 
what I am going to say because this is very important.
  Recently, there was an article put out by AP that was in the 
Indianapolis Star which was on the front page that I read, and it said 
that women and children should eat less fish, and the reason they 
should eat less fish is because there is a high mercury content in the 
fish and it can cause neurological problems in the children and in the 
parents if they eat too much fish.
  What the article did not say is that many of the vaccinations that 
adults get and many of the vaccinations that the children get have 
mercury in them. So we are not supposed to eat the fish, but it is all 
right for the pharmaceutical industry to put a preservative called 
thimerosal into a vaccination and then inject their children with it 
and then the children get the mercury directly from a needle and it 
goes into the brain and causes neurological problems.
  This is not baloney. My grandson got nine shots in 1 day, seven of 
which contained thimerosal, mercury; and within about 2 or 3 or 4 days, 
he became autistic. These are pictures of children from across the 
country who were normal children who received a number of shots 
containing mercury, and they became autistic. Many of their parents 
have testified before my committee as to how their children were before 
they got the shots and how they were after they got the shots.
  We have been raising Cain with the Food and Drug Administration to 
get mercury out of children's vaccines and we got it out of almost all 
of them. But it is still in three: the HIB vaccine, the Hepatitis B, 
and the flu vaccine. I want to get it out of all of them because no 
child should be subjected to having mercury injected into their body. 
If it is bad for them to eat fish with mercury in it, then it is sure a 
heck of a lot worse for them to get a shot from a needle, a vaccination 
that puts mercury into their bodies.
  Children used to get one or two shots. When I was a kid, we did not 
get many shots. We were kept out of school if we had mumps or measles 
or any of those things, but now they give them shots for all that. A 
child, before he starts in the first grade, gets as many as 30 shots. 
Can the Members imagine 30 shots with mercury in them, the cumulative 
effect of that on the brains of these children?
  For those who are concerned about it as adults, and I see some gray 
hairs in the room, the flu vaccine, the tetanus vaccine, almost all the 
vaccines that we get, and our troops get in the field, get as many as 
11 in 1 day in the Persian Gulf, most of those contain thimerosal, 
which is 50 percent mercury.
  We need to collectively, as a body, tell the Food and Drug 
Administration and our health agencies to get mercury out of all 
vaccines. It is not necessary. If we go to single-shot vials, we do not 
need to have mercury in there as a preservative to make sure that they 
are not contaminated. All we have to do is use common sense.
  The problem is it is going to cost just a few cents more per shot to 
make sure that it does not contain mercury. If we really care about the 
thousands of children who are becoming autistic and the people who are 
getting Alzheimer's, we need to get mercury out of the vaccines. There 
is an epidemic of Alzheimer's now. We used to have one out of 10,000 
children who were autistic. Now it is one out of about 200.
  Anybody who has a parent or grandchild ought to listen to what I am 
saying, because if their child gets numerous shots with mercury in 
them, they run the risk of being autistic. I have had hearings for 4 
years now, and I am telling the Members that scientists from around the 
world agree with what I am telling them. Many countries in the world 
have taken mercury out of the vaccines. We need to do it here.

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