By RIDGELY OCHS ridgely.ochs@newsday.com
Newsday.com
November 10, 2009
Citing the ongoing shortage of flu vaccine, the state health commissioner has suspended a law that bans giving shots to women and young children that contain a mercury preservative, provoking outcry from advocates of the ban.
In 2005, New York became one of a half-dozen states that forbid the use of the preservative thimerosal, which contains mercury, in vaccines for children under the age of 3 and for pregnant women. Some believe thimerosal in vaccine has caused an increase in autism cases, a link not found in any major studies.
But in a letter Oct. 29 to doctors, Dr. Richard Daines said he was waiving the thimerosal ban until May 1 of next year.
John Gilmore, executive director of Autism Action Network in Garden City, said Daines’ suspension was “simply irresponsible” and that pregnant women and young children should wait to get thimerosal-free vaccine.
Although Daines’ decision affects vaccines for both seasonal and swine flu – both are in short supply – his main concern is the limited availability of the vaccine for swine flu, which is widespread now.
The move allows doctors to take advantage of the relatively good supply of multidose vials of vaccine – which contain thimerosal – while the state waits to get the single-dose vials, which do not contain the preservative.
In another pressure on the vaccine program, the nasal spray vaccine, which also does not contain the preservative, cannot be used in pregnant women and children under the age of 2 – groups at highest risk of complications from the swine flu.
Of the 1.3 million doses of H1N1 vaccine shipped to the state outside of New York City, 8,300 doses have been in single-dose shots, said health department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton. Hutton said that at any time about 60,000 New Yorkers who live outside of the city are pregnant.
Daines said even if the state ultimately got its share of single-dose vials ordered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it would amount to 378,000 doses – enough to vaccinate 26 percent of children under 3 years old.