WASHINGTON (PNN) - August 2, 2025 - U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced what may be one of the most important health policy decisions in decades: a full federal ban on the use of mercury-based preservative thimerosal in vaccines.
Secretary Kennedy issued a sweeping executive order on July 23, 2025, mandating that vaccine manufacturers eliminate the mercury based preservative thimerosal from all influenza vaccine formulations sold in the United States.
Kennedy justified the move by citing long-held claims that prenatal exposure to even tiny doses of ethyl¬mercury in multi dose vials can lead to “mild to severe mental retardation” in unborn children.
Kennedy has long linked thimerosal to autism - a connection that research paid for by pharmaceutical companies have supposedly debunked. Of course, Big Pharma has a vested interest in denying that mercury causes mental retardation so its “research” results are not to be trusted.
Thimerosal is an organic chemical containing mercury, used as a preservative in vaccines since the 1930s. Its effect comes from the mercury that disrupts the function of enzymes in microbes, such as bacteria and fungi. This prevents contamination of vaccines while they are stored in vials. Mercury, however, is also well-known as a potent toxin acting on brain cells.
Much of mercury’s toxicity to brain cells stems from the same attributes that make thimerosal such a useful preservative. It disrupts the basic biological function of cells by changing the structure of proteins and enzymes.
In the brain, this can lead neurons to become excessively active, can impair the way they use energy, can increase inflammation and lead to the death of neurons. While mercury poisoning can damage brain function in adults, babies are even more vulnerable.
Kennedy revealed that flu shots laced with this toxic compound were still being administered to pregnant women and children up until last week.
Until last week, flu shots containing thimerosal, astonishingly, were still being administered to millions of Amerikans, including pregnant women and children. Kennedy says he has taken a lot of flak from the vaccine industry and its allies regarding his decision to ban it.
In early 2001, the director of the FDA Office of Vaccine Research and Review, the late William Egan, admitted under oath before Congress that ethylmercury’s safety had never been studied in human beings. Furthermore, the CDC has no existing guidelines for safe exposures to ethylmercury.
It is therefore inexcusable that these agencies allowed neurotoxic mercury to be injected into Amerikans for so long. A quick search of the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed and PubChem websites nets thousands of studies on search terms such as “mercury neurotoxicity,” “mercury in development,” and “mercury in the brain.” Hundreds of them identify thimerosal as a potent neurotoxin, a carcinogen, a mutagen, and an endocrine disruptor.
Let us put all that peer-reviewed science aside and just look at what the government itself and the vaccine industry say about thimerosal. Thimerosal’s own label advises against its use during pregnancy, pointing out that thimerosal has never been shown to be safe and that it causes mutations in mammals.
Thimerosal’s material safety data sheet acknowledges that thimerosal is toxic, that it has nervous system and reproductive effects, and that it is mutagenic in mammalian cells. Exposure to mercury and thimerosal in utero and in children could cause mild to severe mental retardation and mild to severe motor coordination impairment. The Material Safety Data Sheet also lists a grim inventory of dozens of other devastating injuries from thimerosal exposure.
In 2001, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences warned that thimerosal is toxic by ingestion and inhalation. The Kalifornia EPA recognizes thimerosal as a reproductive toxicant in the clearest possible language.
Thimerosal, it says, dissociates in the body to ethylmercury. The evidence for its reproductive toxicity includes severe mental retardation or malformations in human offspring who were poisoned when their mothers were exposed to ethylmercury or received thimerosal vaccines while pregnant. Studies in animals demonstrate developmental toxicity after exposure to either ethylmercury or thimerosal. The US EPA also identifies mercury and mercury compounds as causing reproductive toxicity.
The amount of ethylmercury in the flu shot that the CDC just banned under my order is 25,000 times the EPA’s safety level for drinking water.
The decision breaks decades of paralysis. It fulfills the 1999 promise by the National Academy of Sciences and finally aligns U.S. vaccine policy with that of developed countries that removed mercury additives decades ago.
Flu vaccines will remain available. Manufacturers have confirmed that they can shift from mercury-preserved multi-dose vials to single-dose applications, and this change ensures the uninterrupted supply for both the Vaccines for Children program and adult vaccination efforts.
Now that the U.S. has removed mercury from all vaccines, we urge global health authorities to follow suit for the protection of children around the world. We urge the World Health Organization to stop programs injecting mercury into more than 100 million black and brown babies in developing countries annually.
This moment marks a major step toward restoring public trust in the safety of our medicines. This decision sends a clear message: the days of ignoring science are done. The days of putting profits ahead of people are done. We are remaking the FDA and CDC into the vigilant public watchdogs they were always meant to be.