Thimerosal, an ingredient in several childhood vaccines, is linked to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. 

The U.S. government has for years been telling parents that a mercury-based vaccine preservative called thimerosal poses no harm to children but that, out of an abundance of caution, the ingredient hasn’t been included in childhood vaccines since at least 2001.

The Defender reports that, according to an investigation by independent journalist Sharyl Attkisson, both these claims are now proven false.

Attkisson described them as part of “a concerted propaganda campaign to mislead the public” about thimerosal and the science linking it to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Attkisson’s investigation highlights how government agencies, along with the mainstream medical and media establishment, colluded for decades to promote a false narrative about the toxic chemical.

On the one hand, they misled the public about its known and possible harms and actively worked to discredit anyone who questioned its safety. On the other hand, they falsely assured the public that it had been removed from vaccines. Anyone who stated otherwise was branded a conspiracy theorist.

The fact is, thimerosal is still used today in some vaccines, Attkisson said, including some that are advertised as “thimerosol free.”

Her report shows that evidence linking the chemical to neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, has existed for decades. It also shines a light on the purposeful agenda to rewrite the scientific narrative around the devastating neurotoxin to hide that link from the public.

Websites for the CDC, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a key source for vaccine-industry propaganda promoted by Google and an army of bought-and-paid-for “fact checkers,” have long posted statements leading the public to believe thimerosal had been removed years ago from children’s vaccines.

For example, the CDC still has false statements like this on its website: “Fact: Thimerosal was taken out of childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001.”

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia states on its website that thimerosal “was removed from vaccines after an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act was signed into law on Nov. 21, 1997.”

“These claims would receive five outrageous Pinocchios from any neutral fact-checking organization,” Attkisson wrote.

Attkisson shows a series of screenshots from websites and vaccine labels, many removed from the internet but archived on the Wayback Machine, from 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024, and 2025.

The screenshots all show thimerosal as an ingredient in vaccines available to children in the U.S., including in flu shots and some tetanus shots.

There can only be one reason why a government lies to its people in an effort to harm its children. They want a dumbed-down, mentally stunted, weak and passive population. And if that’s what they want, you have to ask yourself, why? Whose interests are served by dumbed-down, weak and passive population? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

©2025 Leo Hohmann. All rights reserved.

---

Please visit Leo’s Newsletter substack.