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It can’t. This is the same kind of messaging debacle that happened two decades ago when thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines “out of an overabundance of caution,” even though there was no evidence that it caused autism. 1/ https://twitter.com/mattgertz/status/1381933962445094916
Far from increasing confidence in childhood vaccines, that decision only served to lead antivaxxers to conclude that their fears were justified and that there had been a coverup. It only feed the “mercury in vaccines cause autism” conspiracy theory. 2/
Worse, it gave antivaxxers a line of argument that seemed credible: Why would they remove thimerosal from vaccines if it really weren’t harmful? It took years to shed the impression that thimerosal-containing vaccines were unsafe. 3/3
One last thought: I appreciate that FDA is between a rock and a hard place with this issue. If it didn’t issue a pause, antivaxxers would weaponize that too. 4/4
And, yes, this is what I mean. 5/5 https://twitter.com/beyerstein/status/1382017379492847616
