UP Ibalon Bicol: High mercury contamination in fish found in US

High mercury contamination in fish found in US

8/21/2009 | Posted by mesiamd | Edit Post

In a recent study disclosed by the US Geological Survey, mercury contamination had almost universal presence in fish caught in the streams in America. About a thousand fish were tested from almost 300 streams in the country. All of them had traces of mercury. A fourth of the results came out with levels that were beyond the tolerable level the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deemed safe for people. (Source: Globe Newspaper/ Boston.com/ AP)

Highest levels of mercury were detected in fish found in streams and coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana. The finding could be an ominous reminder of the need for more pollution control and environmental conservation. Warnings previously raised to inform the public must be stressed.

Adverse Effects of Mercury

Poisoning from mercury can occur as an acute process arising from airborne emissions from coal and industrial wastes. Mercury is found in common household items such as batteries and bathroom cleaners. The metal can cause nervous system impairment, developmental retardation, incoordination, and learning disabilities in susceptible individuals including the unborn and young children.

Mercury is known to cause acrodyna (pink disease; painful extremities) which presents with soreness and reddish rash of distal extremities, irritability, loss of appetite, sweating, photophobia, sleep disturbances, and skin eruptions. Its non-specific manifestations are insiduous and early cases are hard to detect.

The body organs involved are often the nervous system (central and peripheral nervous sytem dysfunction,) gastrointestinal tract (gastroenteritis) and kidneys (tubular necrosis, renal insufficiency).

Recent exposures include contamination of fish in Minamata Bay in Japan (1960) resulting to a disabling neurologic illness called Minamata disaeas. Mercury-tainted fish and seafood had been reported in Canada while contamination of grains were found in Iraq (1960, 1970) and in the United States (1996). A dermatologic preparation harboring the toxic metal had been sold in Mexico. (Photo Credit: fishwhatcom)

Together with lead, arsenic, cadium, and polyvinyl chloride, mercury had been encountered in toys for children. In the past, mercury was an ingredient of diuretics, antibacterial agents, and laxatives used as medicines. It had been used as a part of sphygmomanometers, thermometers and other medical instruments.

More recently, a controversy on the presence of mercury in some vaccine preservatives (thimerosal) raised its possible link to autism which remains unproven. A touchy issue about pregnant women eating potentially contaminated fish and the use of amalgam in dental flllings have not been fully resolved.

Not until mercury was withdrawn from drug manufacture that adverse toxiciy had become uncommon. In whatever form, the metal is toxic. It can be ingested, inhaled, injected, and absorbed on the skin. Due to the widespread use of mercury-bearing fuel fossils and agricultural products, exposure and contamination remain a health problem in the green world.=0=

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Labels: contamination, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, fish, Mercury, metal poisoning, Minamata disease, poisoning, thimerosal, Totie Mesia

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High mercury contamination in fish found in US

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