“Hazardous Waste” Mike
May 3, 2007 by Do'C 
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Apparently, Michael Wagnitz* comments in a recent Huffington Post piece by Arthur Allen. Allen wrote about relative lack of disclosure of conflicts of interest required of the public compared to the scientific community, as well as the failure of many to let go of a failed hypothesis. Interestingly, and on-topic to Allen’s post, did Wagnitz apparently fail to disclose his potential position as a vaccine litigant in the comments? (You can read more about how that whole litigation thing seems to be going, here). At any rate, Mike’s typical vaccine scare math and language, and a strawman argument is pretty much the same as he posted here at Autism Street in the comments as “Yours Truly”. He seems to be a pretty cordial guy, so he does get credit for that, but enough of the nonsense already Mike.
*It’s possible that it is not actually the Michael Wagnitz (whose writing Notmercury and I have written about in the past), even though his own description of his employment makes it pretty clear it’s the same Michael Wagnitz.
By: MikeWag on April 23, 2007 at 12:39pm
Kevin and Arthur (Phd. in toxicology?), I’m not a toxicologist but a chemist that works in a metals analysis unit of a toxicology section in a public health lab. Do I qualify as a scientist?
That depends Mike, how do you define scientist? If you define it simply as someone who is employed in a scientific field, then yes, you qualify as a scientist. If you define it as someone who not only works in a scientific field, but endeavors to employ the scientific method as a means to obtain knowledge, then I’m not so sure. I’ll leave it to readers to have a look at the last article of yours that Notmercury and I wrote about and decide for themselves. I seem to recall a lot of use of the word “belief” in some of your comments.
The concentration of mercury in multi-dose vaccine vials was (is) 50,000 parts per billion (ppb).
Let’s be totally accurate here. It was (is) 50,000 parts per billion by weight (ppbw), which is the same as 50 parts per million by weight (ppmw), but the 50,000 sounds scarier. Now as a chemist you’ll be able to explain the relevance of concentration by weight and toxicity to humans, right?
The EPA defines liquid hazardous waste as 200 ppb mercury.
Which is the same as .2 parts per million by weight.
These are mathamatical facts.
Yes, they appear to be. How are they relevant to toxicity in humans or autism for that mater?
Explain why you feel it is safe to inject pregant women, newborns and infants with levels of mercury 250 times higher than hazardous waste levels. Try to stay on topic and answer my question. By simply answering this question you can stop this raging debate. Unfortunately for Art, this would be very hard on the pocket-book.
Well Mike, I’m afraid my answer will require two parts, however you should find it mostly on topic.
1. I don’t “feel” that it is safe or unsafe to inject pregnant women, newborns and infants with thimerosal-containing vaccines. I’ll cover your reference to “hazardous waste levels” in a minute, but for now it is irrelevant. I “think” that it is a very good idea that childhood vaccines are mostly thimerosal-free, or contain only trace amounts with the exception of some flu shots. I also recognize that continued efforts to remove and reduce the use of mercury in healthcare and medicine is probably a very good idea.
2. You are right - if a typical flu shot is .5ml, and if it’s the thimerosal-containing variety, it probably contains about 25 μg of mercury. This is the same ratio as 50 μg/ml, 50 ppmw, and 50,000 ppbw, or what the hell, let’s just say 50,000,000 pptw. Holy crap! Does that mean anything?
Not really. The instant that 25 μg is injected (even into an average 7 kg, 6 month-old), it is way below any concentration you would say the EPA calls “hazardous waste”. Never mind an adult, it’s miniscule. At the end of the day, it’s probably the actual dose that matters - not the concentration it was delivered in.
Don’t forget, canned, light tuna fish has about 118 ppbw mercury and albacore tuna 353 ppbw mercury - well above the 200 ppbw to qualify as “hazardous waste” according to the EPA. Holy “hazardous waste” sandwiches Batman!
So the question has been answered. Can you knock off the nonsense with meaningless ratios/concentrations? Perhaps even focus your apparently tireless attention on advocating for the rights of autistic people and legitimate services?
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Comment by notmercury — 3 May, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
I think Wagnitz just fell off the tuna boat.
Hey Mike, how about that fluorescent light bulb over your head. Hazardous waste or no?
Comment by Señor Commenter — 3 May, 2007 @ 1:08 pm
This guy wears his technician job title on his sleeve. Yes, that’s what he is: a technician. He can call himself a scientist all day long, it means nothing. A kid who pulls the legs off a fly to see what happens is a scientist.
Dilloooooshun is fun
Dilloooooshun is real
My dog is a scientist
And Señor Chemist is a loudmouth heel
Comment by daedalus2u — 3 May, 2007 @ 4:05 pm
Wow, most hair is above 200 ppb mercury. Do all barbershops and hairdressers dispose of the hair as hazardous waste?
If you cut your own hair and just throw away the clippings, are you illegally disposing of hazardous waste?
What about shaving and letting the little bits of hair go down the drain?
Comment by notmercury — 3 May, 2007 @ 6:20 pm
Easy there daedalus, next they’ll be using electrolysis on these kids to get rid of all that toxic hair :+)
Comment by Tom — 4 May, 2007 @ 4:43 am
No need to use electrolysis on autistics cause according to Blaxill et al, these kids are non-excretors, so their hair is safe.
Comment by Yours Truly — 7 May, 2007 @ 3:33 pm
Hi Guys. I\’ve been called much worse than wagnuts. Hazardous waste is determined by using the Toxicity Characteristic Leachate Procedure (TCLP). For solids, 100 grams of material is added to 2 liters of liquid material. For pure liquid material, like vaccine solution, no dilution is required. The solutions pH is adjusted to acidic and then tumbled for six hours. For metals analysis, the pH is adjusted to
Comment by Do'C — 7 May, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
Hi Mike,
Thanks for dropping by.
Yeah, I seem to remember one commenter doing that back in February. He/she was immediately warned and doesn’t seem to be a repeat offender.
to …….?
Is this going somewhere with respect to autism?
Comment by Yours Truly — 8 May, 2007 @ 8:52 am
For metals analysis, the pH is adjusted to
Comment by Yours Truly — 8 May, 2007 @ 8:54 am
As far as a fluorescent light bulb, there was an article last week (by one of your guys) which described how one broke in a kids bedroom. The child’s mom called the local health department and they came over and measured the air. I guess it exceeded OSHA standards by a factor of six. An environmental clean up company gave them a good deal and took care of them for $2000.00. It could take awhile to recoup the cost for this bulb.
Comment by Yours Truly — 8 May, 2007 @ 8:55 am
As far as the Hg by weight nonsense, If you take a regular mercury standard, I use Fisher brand, calibrate an instrument and analyze the mercury from a vaccine vial, you will get 50,000 ug/l (ppb). Make sure you first do a 1:1000 dilution so you don’t blow out your detector. This is the standard units used for analyzing and monitoring mercury.
Comment by Yours Truly — 8 May, 2007 @ 8:57 am
Tuna and hair would have a 1:20 dilution factor built in. Since the mercury is tightly bound in these materials, neither one of these would leach mercury in the initial phase and thus would not be considered hazardous waste.
Comment by Yours Truly — 8 May, 2007 @ 9:09 am
Notmercury, Thanks for turning me on to the mercury poisoning paper from Israel. It was very informative. Also, the link to the John Hopkins neuropathology lab is a great resource.
Comment by Do'C — 8 May, 2007 @ 9:41 am
to …. ? Did you:
a. mean to say “too”?
b. plan to provide a value?
c. plan to connect this to autism?
Yep, it sounds like it. How is that relevant to autism?
Your mathematical statements are not disputed. How is any of this relevant to autism?
How is classification as “hazardous waste” relevant to autism? Is it still “hazardous waste” by definition the instant it’s injected?
Comment by Yours Truly — 8 May, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
Sorry Doc, I just tried to respond to earlier comments. The pH is adjusted to
Comment by Do'C — 8 May, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
On the chance that your trying use “less than” or “greater than” sign, write them out. Your comments could be truncated as unfinished XHTML (which is enabled for commenter markup).
Comment by Do'C — 8 May, 2007 @ 11:12 pm
By the way Mike, saw your latest piece of garbage at that AC website you write to.
Hilarious. I just need to figure out if it’s worth writing about. It kind of doesn’t seem like it with statements like:
Are childhood vaccines typically delivered in multi-dose vials in the U.S. Mike?
See the section titled “Recent and Future FDA Action” of The FDA website
“These changes have been accomplished by reformulating products in single dose vials that do not contain a preservative. At present, all routinely recommended vaccines for U.S. infants are available only as thimerosal-free formulations or contain only trace amounts of thimerosal.”
Comment by notmercury — 9 May, 2007 @ 5:20 am
“Make sure you first do a 1:1000 dilution so you don’t blow out your detector.
Can you elaborate on the danger of “blowing out your detector”? What sort of instrument are you using and how did you get your hands on a thimerosal containing vaccine?
Comment by Bartholomew Cubbins — 9 May, 2007 @ 5:49 am
Can someone please tell me why some guy, who is trying to prove that he can read part of an operations manual, is repeating a sentence fragment over and over again in some vain effort to sound like an authority? WTF? Or is this comment spam from a bot?
Comment by Do'C — 9 May, 2007 @ 7:22 am
BC - I’m guessing he’s been using a “less than” and it’s getting truncated as garbage XHTML. Why he wouldn’t just skip the lab manual and tell us how it relates to autism, I don’t know.
Comment by Yours Truly — 9 May, 2007 @ 9:46 am
Hi Guys. Here’s my original post. Thanks for helping me out with the truncating problem. Notmercury, I use a Leeman Hydra AA Mercury analyzer and usually work witn samples in the ng/l range. Where did I get the vaccines from? You know I can’t tell. The worst nightmare for the FDA is someone actually testing these for mercury. One of the vaccines had 270,000 ug/l mercury. Hazardous waste is determined by using the Toxicity Characteristic Leachate Procedure (TCLP). For solids, 100 grams of material is added to 2 liters of liquid material. For pure liquid material, like vaccine solution, no dilution is required. The solutions pH is adjusted to acidic and then tumbled for six hours. For metals analysis, the pH is adjusted to less than 2 after the six hours. Tuna and hair would have a 1:20 dilution factor built in. Since the mercury is tightly bound in these materials, neither one of these would leach mercury in the initial phase and thus would not be considered hazardous waste. As far as a fluorescent light bulb, there was an article last week (by one of your guys) which described how one broke in a kids bedroom. The child’s mom called the local health department and they came over and measured the air. I guess it exceeded OSHA standards by a factor of six. An environmental clean up company gave them a good deal and took care of them for $2000.00. It could take awhile to recoup the cost for this bulb. As far as the Hg by weight nonsense, if you take a regular mercury standard, I use Fisher brand, calibrate an instrument and analyze the mercury from a vaccine vial, you will get 50,000 ug/l (ppb). Make sure you first do a 1:1000 dilution so you don’t blow out your detector (replace the words blow out with saturate). How does this relate to autism? Kids who are mercury poisoned are being labeled as autistic by psychiatrists. Why? It’s a control thing. Autism is big business. I’ll refrain from name calling.
Comment by Do'C — 9 May, 2007 @ 10:23 am
Yeah right Mike. Read the next post (”Three This Week”) and comments. Pay attention to Handley’s statement about mercury poisoning. Read the linked material and all the linked references at that linked material - probably not a small task, so take a couple of weeks if you need to. Pay very careful attention to the Pediatrics paper by Nelson and Bauman.
After that, come on back and present just one case study published in a peer-reviewed journal indexed at PubMed that explains how a patient diagnosed as autistic actually had clinical mercurism.
This is last year’s hypothesis. Continuing to say autism is mercury poisoning until you are blue in the face is not going to make it true.
Did you notice that after 5 years in litigation, the PSC in the autism omnibus proceeding has apparently still been unable to identify the two test cases (out of almost 5,000) that will prove thimerosal caused autism?
Comment by Yours Truly — 9 May, 2007 @ 11:43 am
Check out the “published date” and “accepted date” on the Nelson and Bauman paper. They are both Dec. 2, 2002. Usually there is a 6-8 month peer review/correction process between these 2 dates. When I asked Pediatrics about this they said this was a “solicited paper”. Hmmm, so we need someone with big titles and no integretity to sign this paper to say there is no link between thimerosal and autism. This is where the infamous “ethylmercury molecule is to big to cross a childs (non-existent) blood brain barrier” statement came from. This in spite of the fact of at least 5 published cases of Ethylmercurric Chloride poisoning which is the main ingredient in thimerosal (Merck Manual,13th edt.) Everyone of these cases discuss damage to the central nervous system. What do a couple of bimbo’s get paid to do a solicited paper for Pediatrics? Who ever heard of a peer-reveiwed journal soliciting people to write a paper with a pre-determined conclusion. When I go to Pubmed and type in “thimerosal and autism” I get 77 hits. They cannot get the other two autism omnibus cases going because someone will not cooperate with the discovery process for the two idenitified individuals. Wonder why? “At present, all routinely recommended vaccines for U.S. infants are available only as thimerosal-free formulations or contain only trace amounts of thimerosal”. Ever hear of the flu shot Doc?
Comment by Do'C — 9 May, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
Noted. How is this relevant to the actual symptoms of mecurism and description of autism?
“Nonspecific symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and irrational fears may occur both in mercury poisoning and in children with autism, but overall the clinical picture of mercurism—from any known form, dose, duration, or age of exposure—does not mimic that of autism.”
Which is irrelevant to whether or not the “symptoms” are the same. I’m willing to go with Burbacher et al.’s conclusions about ethylmercury and infant primate brains.
So what? I don’t dispute that mercury poisoning can cause CNS damage. The question is, “Can it cause autism?”. Get it? Autism.
Is it relevant to the symptoms and differences between mercurism and autism?
Which is relevant to the symptoms and differences between mercurism and autism how exactly?
Yes. Please share what evidence you can.
Good point. I suppose that’s a bit of sloppy wording and vague definition on their part. The CDC refers to people 6 months and older as “children” not infants, but most sources I know, would refer to anyone under 12 months as an infant. So technically they should add the “with the exception of some of the flu shots, which continue to be phased out”.
On that note, what do you know about actual proportion of thimerosal-containing flu shots as compared to thimerosal-free (or trace amount) versions for anyone 6-12 months of age?
What is the actual nationwide flu shot uptake for children between 6 months and 12 months of age, and how many of those kids don’t get thimerosal-free or trace amounts only?
Data please.
After that, please explain how that amount of thimerosal causes autism. Feel free to refer to our last two reviews of your ‘work’.
By the way:
“After that, come on back and present just one case study published in a peer-reviewed journal indexed at PubMed that explains how a patient diagnosed as autistic actually had clinical mercurism.”
Failed.
Comment by notmercury — 9 May, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
MW: “Ethylmercurric Chloride poisoning which is the main ingredient in thimerosal (Merck Manual,13th edt.)”
I’ll have to check the Merck but might you mean an ingredient for the preparation of thimerosal?
Comment by Prometheus — 9 May, 2007 @ 2:15 pm
Yours Truly stated:
“Kids who are mercury poisoned are being labeled as autistic by psychiatrists.”
Actually, I think that should be:
“Kids who are autistic are being labeled as mercury poisoned by ‘alternative’ practitioners with an agenda and a profit motive.”
Come on - which makes more sense?
[a] Psychiatrists and psychologists would knowingly misdiagnose thousands of children when it profits them not at all to do so.
- or -
[b] “Alternative” practitioners who make a living off of treating “heavy metal poisoning” would see autistic children as “mercury poisoned”.
Frankly, it makes a lot more sense to assume [b], even if you know nothing else about the situation (as is clearly the case with Yours Truly).
Prometheus
Comment by Yours Truly — 9 May, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
Notmercury, thimerosal is ethylmercurric chloride reacted with thiosalycilic acid (whose only purpose is to increase the solubility of the ethylmercurric chloride in water). Proemtheus, are you serious? Kids with mercury poisoning have clinical lab tests, physical symptoms and behavioral issues to help diagnose their sickness. Autism is based solely on behavioral issues to idenify where they land on some silly psychiatric spectrum with no known cause or cure.
Comment by notmercury — 9 May, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
Right. Ethylmercuric chloride is a reagent used to synthesize thimerosal. It is not part of thimerosal nor is it a main ingredient.
So why don’t you explain the principle behind the Leeman Hydra AA Mercury analyzer and how it is that the “mercury detector” might be “blown out” or saturated by high concentrations of Hg.
Comment by Señor Commenter — 9 May, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
notmercury, in keeping with the theme, the next time I’m in the grocery store, I’m going to ask the bagger how the barcode scanner works.
(Published date - Accepted date) != (review time)
(Submitted Date - Published date) = (review time)
The status of a Solicited Article does not require the work to bypass review.
No journal editor in their right mind is going to let some hack technician in on confidential information regarding the peer review process. The only information available here is exactly what is printed on the article itself.
Wagnitz, please continue using a pen name because your ignorance is embarrassing the U of Wi. Makes me really wonder about my state’s technicians who test our public water supply for impurities.
Comment by Yours Truly — 10 May, 2007 @ 6:52 am
Señor Commenter, what fraternity are you a member of?
Comment by Señor Commenter — 10 May, 2007 @ 7:56 am
Delta Tau Chi
Comment by Yours Truly — 10 May, 2007 @ 9:22 am
Good-bye guys! It’s been fun!
Comment by Do'C — 10 May, 2007 @ 9:34 am
So long Mike, we do appreciate you taking the time to visit. Aside from calliing people who aren’t participating in the discussion “bimbos”, your good manners are appreciated.
As a suggestion, perhaps in your next ‘article’, you’d be willing to dig into:
in a little more detail, you know, explain the science of that.
BTW: I rushed λλλ
Comment by TheProbe — 10 May, 2007 @ 10:03 am
I finally figured it out: Conspiracies cause Autism. That has got to be it. When facts and science are in short supply, they use a conspiracy.
Comment by anonimouse — 14 May, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
Mike,
I guess providing actual evidence to back up your position was a bit too much, huh?
Good luck with your doomed lawsuit.