Study Misses Link Between Thimerosal and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Letter to the Editor:

The recent article, “Safety of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines: A Two- Phased Study of Computerized Health Maintenance Organization Databases,” by Verstraeteten et al. [1], which failed to find a consistent association between thimerosal in childhood vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, has a number of issues that need to be further addressed.

First, the head author, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, has for the past several years worked for GlaxoSmithKline, a vaccine manufacturer of thimerosal-containing vaccines. In addition, Nancy Pekarek, a company spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, has written that Verstraeten, since leaving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has worked as an adviser as the study was finalized and prepared for publication. Presently, GlaxoSmithKline, potentially, faces a large number of lawsuits on the very issue that the paper discusses.