A committee hearing at the statehouse this afternoon seeks to send a message to parents to avoid vaccines for their children that include mercury as a preservative. Senator Ken Veenstra, a republican from Orange City who is chairman of the Senate Human Resources Committee, says it’s time to choose to err on the side of caution.Veenstra says mercury is one of the most dangerous heavy metals the human body can be exposed to. Veenstra is sponsoring a bill that would enforce a statewide ban on vaccines that use mercury as a preservative. Veenstra says even though the risk might be low, it seems prudent to eliminate the risk. But State Epidemiologist Patricia Quinlisk says most childhood vaccines do not contain mercury as a preservative. Quinlisk says starting in 1999, mercury has been phased out of childhood vaccines. Quinlisk says today, a child in Iowa could get all their vaccines without being exposed to thimerosal. That’s the name for the mercury-based preservative Senator Veenstra’s targeting. Veenstra believes the mercury contained in childhood vaccines has led to the dramatic increase in the number of children who have autism. Quinlisk says “almost all the studies have found no link whatsoever.” But Barb Romkema of LeMars who is scheduled to testify at today’s hearing believes her 23-year-old autistic son, Craig, was mercury-poisoned by the vaccinations he had as a child. Romkema says the past three years have been a nightmare as she’s joined the on-line community of parents with children who’ve lived through the same scenario her son did. Romkema says she’s wept over the stories, and thought about what she could do to keep other children from being poisoned by the mercury-based preservatives in vaccines. Dana Halvorson of Northwood has a five-and-a-half-year-old daughter who is autistic. Halvorson says Robyn developed normally till she was 15 months old, and that’s when Halvorson believes her daughter was “vaccine-injured” by mercury.Halvorson says mercury is toxic to anyone it comes in contact with and has no place in vaccines, especially vaccines meant to be injected in “precious babies.”