1. is a Poison! Why should you care?

3. 1in 10 women have mercury levels high enough to cause neurological effects in their offspring

4. There is 50 times more mercury in medical waste than in general municipal waste

5. Annually 60,000 children are born with neurological problems due to in utero exposure to methylmercury

6. 41 states have issued 2,242 mercury advisories for mercury levels in fish at a level of public health concern

7. INORGANIC MERCURY Routes of Exposure Inhalation Ingestion Dermal

8. Health Effects Renal Pulmonary Gastrointestinal Cardiovascular

9. ORGANIC MERCURY Route of Exposure Fetal exposure via placenta Ingestion

10. Health Effects Organic mercury is neurotoxic. Neurological Developmental Impacts

11. Children, and especially fetuses, may be particularly vulnerable to methyl mercury. Methyl mercury compounds pass easily through the blood-tests barrier and the placenta, causing damage both pre- and postnatally. Subtle neurological impairments may occur even at low to moderate levels.

12. The most common potential mode of occupational exposure to mercury in biomedical facilities is probably via inhalation of vapors.

13. Health Care Without Harm has partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the American Hospitals Association and the American Nurses Association to create the Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) program. The Hospitals for a Healthy Environment website contains numerous tools, resources, and links regarding mercury use, reduction and elimination in the health care setting.

14. The fetus of a mother who eats contaminated fish can be exposed to methylmercury via the mother's blood, and an infant can be exposed by ingestion of breast milk.

15. Dental amalgam contains mercury, a hazardous waste. If washed down the drain, mercury can leach into the water supply and harm the environment.

16. Without a complete history, mercury toxicity, especially in elderly individuals, can be misdiagnosed as Parkinson disease, senile dementia, metabolic encephalopathy, depression, or Alzheimer disease.

17. Case Example: Occupational Exposure Chemistry professor with an interest in the toxicology of heavy metals Experiment performed in a fume hood Spilled several drops of methylmercury onto a gloved hand Spill considered inconsequential and cleaned up Two months later, the professor began to develop symptoms of neurotoxicity. She died despite receiving aggressive therapy.

18. Case Example: The Poisoning of Minamata by Douglas Allchin “It started out quite simply, with the strangeness of cats "dancing" in the street--and sometimes collapsing and dying. Who would have known, in a modest Japanese fishing village in the 1950s, that when friends or family members occasionally shouted uncontrollably, slurred their speech, or dropped their chopsticks at dinner, that one was witnessing the subtle early symptoms of a debilitating nervous condition caused by ingesting mercury? Yet when such scattered, apparently unconnected, and mildly mysterious events began to haunt the town of Minamata, Japan, they were the first signs of one of the most dramatic and emotionally moving cases of industrial pollution in history.”

19. Case Example: School & Community Exposure August 1994 500 students in Belle Glade, Florida, contaminated with metallic mercury Mercury found by children in an abandoned van Hazardous waste team decontaminated the children (removed contaminated clothing and washed the metallic mercury from their skin) More than 20 families had to be evacuated while their homes were decontaminated.

20. Case Example: Acute Poisoning from Residential Exposure to Elemental Hg August 7, four adult hospitalized for evaluation of nausea, diarrhea, shortness of breath, and nonspecific chest pain August 11, investigators learn one of the patients was smelting dental amalgam in the home. Mercury fumes circulated throughout the house. All of the patients died within 11-24 days despite vigorous therapy House Demolished: Decontamination could not reduce indoor air mercury concentrations to acceptable level