Dr. Halsey's presentation at the National Vaccine Advisory Committee Workshop on Thimerosal and Vaccines held in Bethesda, Maryland on August 11-12, 1999.

Slide Notes:

The quantity of mercury in each vaccine should be listed on the package label. Currently, the package label lists a concentration either as a dilution (ie, 1:10,000) or as a percent (ie, 0.01%).

As Leslie Ball from the Food and Drug Administration outlined in an earlier presentation, one must go through a two or three step calculation processes and know the molecular weight of each of the components of thimerosal in order to know that it is 49.6% mercury by weight, in order to determine the mercury content in each dose of vaccine. Since mercury is the biologically active component in thimerosal, the amount should be listed on the package label.