A new slate of vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted Thursday to recommend that Americans receive influenza vaccines that are free of thimerosal even though there is no evidence of harm from the preservative.

The CDC's newly rebuilt Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) took aim Thursday at a mercury-based preservative long targeted by vaccine skeptics, recommending that children, pregnant women, and all other adults use only single-dose seasonal influenza vaccines without thimerosal.

Taking aim at a longtime target of anti-vaccine activists, CDC advisors said Thursday that the U.S. should not administer influenza vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used to protect multi-dose vials of vaccine.