cutiesncantrips:sciencebelongstoallofus:Maki Naro @ The NibOrganometallic heavy metal compounds are
cutiesncantrips:sciencebelongstoallofus:Maki Naro @ The NibOrganometallic heavy metal compounds are scary, even more than other forms of heavy metals are scary, and people don’t fear heavy metals nearly enough. It happens that mercury is a relatively nice heavy metal, and thimerosal doesn’t make it much worse, but being scared of it when you don’t know that isn’t nearly as stupid as being scared of salt because of sodium and chlorine. A typical dose of one of the few vaccines that still have thimerosal only has as much mercury in it as a couple cans of tuna, and your body can get rid of tiny amounts of mercury like that without being harmed. But if they were intentionally giving your kids tetraethyllead or some organocadmium compound with the arguments “it’s ethyl so don’t worry” and “a compound isn’t the same as the scary elements it’s made from,” I’d be freaking out with you. Heavy metals dissolve themselves into your brain and slowly damage your nerves over time. Some will give you cancer. Organometallic compounds carry the toxic metals in them through barriers like skin and gloves, and allow them to hide in fat tissue where even chelation therapy can’t save you. The good news about mercury is that your body can get rid of it in months, and small amounts for a short time aren’t very damaging. The same cannot be said for the lead dissolving off your pipes or sitting in the soil because of old gasoline. Lead will sit in your body your entire life, and researchers have yet to find an amount of it small enough to not harm developing children. If you somehow manage to find an organocadmium compound, they have both acute and chronic toxicity, meaning it’ll kill you both now and later.Vaccines have been thoroughly tested to ensure they’re safe, and are essential for your health and everyone else’s. But if you encounter a heavy metal compound you aren’t familiar with and someone tries to use arguments like this comic did to convince you it’s safe, the arguments are crap and shouldn’t be believed. When you encounter unfamiliar heavy metal compounds that *haven’t* been tested for safety like the thimerosal in some vaccines has, run like hell. -- source link