Krakow’s children cohort and long-term follow-up of thimerosal exposure—design and statistics

Excerpt

The study of Mrozek-Budzyn et al. [4] on cognitive development and ethylmercury (EtHg) exposure from thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) reported “no negative association between neonatal and early infancy TCV exposure and mental development in children up to 9th year of age” [4]. Mrozek-Budzyn et al. [4] did not discuss the findings or their 2012 paper from the same cohort. We note the 2012 paper states that the full cohort of infants includes 505 children (196 were eligible for the 2012 analysis) [3]. However, the 2015 paper does not explain why only 318 infants were included out of the 505 children [4]. The authors state in their discussion that some exclusions were made based on maternal health/lifestyle/occupation [4], however, they should have detailed precise exclusion criteria and provided descriptive statistics of included versus excluded infants to allow readers to assess the data for selection bias. …