Hansard

I associate myself with Nicola Sturgeon's remarks and support entirely what she has said. The accumulation of mercury and heavy metals in our children—both from the environment and from vaccinations—is a problem that is being addressed in nearly every developed country, as Nicola Sturgeon said. However, the problem is not being addressed directly in this country. Using a mercury derivative as a preservative, effectively to extend the shelf life of a product, may well have its benefits for the manufacturer and for central Government, which buys and stocks the vaccination, but that can hardly be cited as justification for using a poisonous substance on children and pregnant mothers.

In the United States, the immunisation safety review committee of the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is inadequate acceptable evidence to establish a causal relationship between thimerosal exposure through child vaccines and the neurodevelopmental disorders of autism. However, in the same paper, the committee made recommendations, which have been acted on, to reduce and effectively remove thimerosal from all child vaccines.

As Nicola Sturgeon said, the debate should not be about whether using mercury as a preservative in vaccines causes specific disorders. The science is straightforward: mercury is a poison in the human body. Mercury in the human body at an early stage, particularly at the foetal stage, can be devastating to the development of the neural pathways, among many other things.

I speak on behalf of the cross-party group on autism and Asperger's and the many parents who have written to me. Those parents are now extremely scared, not of the MMR vaccine, but of the DTP vaccine, especially in light of the evidence that emerged in London in the case of the woman who was tried for, found guilty of and jailed for the death of her two children. We have now discovered that both those children, who had had the DTP vaccine, had high levels of a form of virus that is associated with cot death. One woman in this country has spent nearly two years in jail, gone through a trauma that has destroyed her family and has had to live with the accusation that she caused the death of her two children. Is the Executive prepared for similar cases to come to light, or shall we operate purely on the precautionary principle, as has been requested on many occasions? That approach is simple and has been followed in the United States and the rest of the developed world.

If we want to maintain herd immunity, we must not undermine faith in the vaccination programme by effectively giving people no choice. I urge the minister to tell us that we are moving to a time when choice will be available in all vaccines and that there will be an active campaign for the health service in Scotland to use only those vaccines that do not contain thimerosal for pregnant women and young children.