family tools
choose a tool resource directory
find a practitioner parenting toolbox product safety media reviews family fun guide send an e-card family astrology

community features choose a feature birth stories find a Mothering friend live chat mothers' writing group teen voices

	growingchild vaccines

Is Aluminum the New Thimerosal?: Notes

NOTES

1. Bob Rappoport, MD, Director, Division of Anesthetic, Critical Care, and Addiction Drug Products, Office of Drug Evaluation II, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, "Document NDA 19-626/S-019" Section 3.a (13 February 2004): 2; www.fda.gov/cder/foi/appletter/2004/19626scs019ltr.pdf.

2. William K. Hubbard, Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning, Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, "Document 02N-0496: Aluminum in Large and Small Volume Parenterals Used in Total Parenteral Nutrition" (10 March 2003): 2; www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/98fr/oc0367.pdf.

3. P. Charney, The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) Aluminum Task Force, "A.S.P.E.N. Statement on Aluminum in Parenteral Nutrition Solutions," Nutrition in Clinical Practice 19 (August 2004): 416-417.

4. N. J. Bishop, MD, et al., "Aluminum Neurotoxicity in Preterm Infants Receiving Intravenous-Feeding Solutions," New England Journal of Medicine 336, no. 22 (29 May 1997): 1557-1562.

5. Committee on Nutrition, American Academy of Pediatrics, "Aluminum Toxicity in Infants and Children," Pediatrics 97, no. 3 (March 1996): 413-416.

6. T. Jefferson et al., "Adverse Events after Immunisation with Aluminum-Containing DTP Vaccines: Systematic Review of the Evidence," The Lancet: Infectious Diseases 4, no. 2 (2004): 84-90.

7. Ibid.

8. See Note 4.

9. M. Kawahara et al., "Effects of Aluminum on the Neurotoxicity of Primary Cultured Neurons and on the Aggregation of Beta-Amyloid Protein," Brain Research Bulletin 55, no. 2 (15 May 2001): 211-217. Summary: These researchers at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience, Japan, exposed rat nerve cells to varying amounts of aluminum and found not only nerve degeneration, but the accumulation of amyloid proteins, as is seen in patients with Alzheimer's disease. The level of aluminum needed to cause this effect was 50 micromoles over a three-week period. It isn't clear how 50 micromoles compares to the microgram units used in the vaccines.

10. K. Redhead et al., "Aluminum-Adjuvanted Vaccines Transiently Increase Aluminum Levels in Murine Brain Tissue," Pharmacology & Toxicology 70, no. 4 (April 1992): 278-280. Summary: This British group injected aluminum-containing vaccines into mice and found that levels of the metal rose in the brain and peaked around the third day after injection.

11. J. J. Canales et al., "Aluminum Impairs the Glutamate-nitric Oxide-CGMP Pathway in Cultured Neurons and in Rat Brain In Vivo: Molecular Mechanisms and Implications for Neuropathology," Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry 87, nos. 1-2 (November 2001): 63-69. Summary: This Spanish group found that when pregnant rats were fed aluminum over the long term, the brains of their babies showed impaired biochemistry (as described in the title of the paper).

12. P. Nayak, A. K. Chatterjee, "Effects of Aluminum Exposure on Brain Glutamate and GABA systems: An Experimental Study in Rats," Food and Chemical Toxicology 39, no. 12 (December 2001): 1285-1289. Summary: This group from the University of Calcutta, India, had similar findings as the study cited in Note 9.

13. S. S. El-Rhaman, "Neuropathology of Aluminum Toxicity in Rats (Glutamate and GABA Impairment)," Pharmacology 47, no. 3 (March 2003): 189-194. Summary: This group of doctors fed aluminum to rats for 35 days and found high levels of the metal in the brain tissue, as well as brain-tissue degeneration in a pattern similar to that found in Alzheimer's disease.

14. Myron Levin, "91 Memo Warned of Mercury in Shots," Los Angeles Times (8 February 2005).