Swine flu vaccines will contain additive axed after health scare

Britain's stockpile of swine flu vaccines will contain a controversial additive that has been removed from other childhood jabs.

The mercury based preservative Thiomersal has caused a health scare in America, but there is no evidence it is harmful.

It was removed from vaccines in the US as a "precautionary measure" and has not been used in childhood inoculations in Britain since 2004.

But it will be used in most of Britain's swine flu vaccines for its properties as a preservative.

Professor David Salisbury, the Department of Health's director of immunisation, said: "There is a very clear view in the scientific community that there is no risk from the inclusion of Thiomersal in vaccines. The medical community is not divided on this. The only place where people say there is a problem is outside the scientific community."

Fears were raised that Thiomersal could be linked to autism when the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service called for it to be removed from vaccines in 1999 as a precautionary measure.

But this led to a health scare, with parents claiming the substance must be harmful if it was being removed.

In 2004 the British government began using childhood vaccines that did not contain the preservative.

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, Chairman of the Australian company Vaxine that is producing a Thiomersal-free swine flu vaccine, said he would not give his children a vaccine that contained the preservative.

But Professor Salisbury said Thiomersal was not purposefully removed from British vaccines.

He said: "Thiomersal was not removed in the UK. It was simply that the vaccines that we were moving to didn't contain it.

"There was no problem with it in the first place."

Professor Adam Finn, professor of paediatrics at Bristol University, said the decision to remove Thiomersal from vaccines in America made "everyone concerned that there must have been a problem in the first place. This gave a lot of impetus to the whole idea."

He said the UK government announced it was going to use a new type of childhood vaccine that did not contain the Thiomersal - although that was not the reason for the change.

Professor Finn added: "The government thought people would be pleased to know Thiomersal had gone, even though they didn't think there was a problem with it in the first place.

"They sleep walked into the same situation as the US did.

"But if you really try to find any evidence that this stuff does any harm, you can't find it. It is just not there."

A spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, which is making most of Britain's vaccine supply, said: "For every new medicine we do a benefit risk profile. In terms of bodies of evidence studies have shown there is no causal link between Thiomersal and autism."

The European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organisation's Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety () have approved the use of Thiomersal in pandemic vaccines.

A spokeswoman for the department of health said: "Vaccines in the current childhood schedule are single-dose for immediate use, which means a preservative is not needed. The GSK swine flu vaccine is multi-dose to increase production capacity, so a preservative is required."

She added: "The European Medicines Agency has strict processes in place for licensing pandemic vaccines.

"There are no safety issues with thiomersal in vaccines. Scientists have investigated this and no evidence of harm has been found."