OBJECTIVE To assess the possible toxicity of thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) among infants. METHODS A 2-phased retrospective cohort study was conducted using computerized health maintenance organization (HMO) databases. Phase I screened for associations between neurodevelopmental disorders and thimerosal exposure among 124 170 infants who were born during 1992 to 1999 at 2 HMOs (A and B...

The scorpion toxin maurocalcine acts as a high affinity agonist of the type-1 ryanodine receptor expressed in skeletal muscle. Here, we investigated the effects of the reducing agent dithiothreitol or the oxidizing reagent thimerosal on type-1 ryanodine receptor stimulation by maurocalcine. Maurocalcine addition to sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles actively loaded with calcium elicited Ca²⁺ relea...

Previous data have shown that protein kinase C (PKC) participates in the mechanism of sperm-induced calcium oscillations in mammalian oocytes, but the actual role of this enzyme in the oscillation mechanism is still unknown. In this study we show that drugs modulating PKC activity disturb the oscillations induced by spermatozoa, thimerosal and ryanodine, but in a different way for each of the t...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether children who received recommended vaccines on time during the first year of life had different neuropsychological outcomes at 7 to 10 years of age as compared with children with delayed receipt or nonreceipt of these vaccines. METHODS Publicly available data, including age at vaccination, from a previous VaccineSafety Datalink study of thimerosal exposure and 4...

Montenegro skin test (MST) represents the main complementary diagnostic test for tegumentary leishmaniases (TL) in endemic regions. Most antigen formulations used for the MST contain thimerosal as preservative. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, recommended reducing or eliminating thimerosal from vaccines and other biological reagents and the Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitár...

Thimerosal is an ethyl mercury–containing compound that has been used safely for .60 years as a preservative in multidose vials of vaccines to prevent bacterial and fungal contamination of those vials when they are repeatedly entered to withdraw doses. In the late 1990s, preservative-free single-dose vials were widely introduced into high-income countries (HICs). This was a precautionary move i...

BACKGROUND there is a group of patients with contact allergy to thimerosal (thiosalicylic acid and ethylmercuric chloride), thiosalicylic acid sensitized, who develop photodermatitis to piroxicam. We present a case which we have investigated cross-reactivity among different oxicams. METHODS AND RESULTS a 44-year-old man with contact allergy to thimerosal. A few hours after the intake of Felde...

We thank Mr. José G. Dórea for his interest in our article Total mercury content in canine hair before and after administration of vaccines containing thiomersal, which deals with the determination of total mercury in hair of dogs after administration of thiomersal-containing vaccine (TCV) with ethylmercury as active substance. We thank him, in particular, for very inspiring and valuable commen...