Our Preferred Poison--A little mercury is all humans need to do away with themselves quietly, slowly

discover ^ | March 2005 | Karen Wright

[dennisw]

PARTS TWO AND THREE of this article:

http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-05/features/our-preferred-poison

 

[apillar]

"A single drop on a human hand can be irreversibly fatal."

Bull... I use to play with it all the time when I was a kid, never even got sick let alone died...obviously...

[cripplecreek]

Same here.

[6SJ7]

A single drop on a human hand can be irreversibly fatal.

As opposed to reversibly fatal?

[Dallas59]

Stop eating fish. PETA will be glad!

[dennisw]

"A single drop on a human hand can be irreversibly fatal."

Correct. This is nonsense. If somehow that drop could be inserted into the bloodstream, one molecule at a time, that would be a killer

[old and tired]

I know mercury can be deadly. However, I'm surprised that woman died just after handling it. When I was a kid we used to play with mercury. It rolled, it split and came back together.

All the kids had it. None of us died (quickly) from it. But who knows what the long term effects have been.

[mtbopfuyn]

Yeah, it is bull. Mr. M and I both played with it from broken thermometers when we were kids. Neat stuff. Just like the bad guy on Terminator; split it apart and it rolls back together.

[dennisw]

Concerns about low-level toxicity haunt discussions of another ubiquitous source of mercury exposure: silver dental fillings. Elemental mercury, which makes up half of silver fillings, releases mercury vapor, just as liquid mercury does. The vapor from dental amalgams is the primary source of the one to eight micrograms of mercury per liter of blood, that is, according to some sources, in the average American adult. That amount uncomfortably overlaps the Environmental Protection Agency’s current safe level of 5.8 micrograms per liter. But the EPA’s safety level is based on methylmercury exposure, about which more is known. No human studies have assessed prolonged exposure to low levels of mercury vapor. One study hints at subtle neural and behavioral anomalies in dentists, who collectively use 300 metric tons of mercury in amalgams each year and who often have two to five times the typical concentration of mercury in their urine.


“I think the methylmercury in fish is probably our least toxic exposure,” says Haley, who broadcasts the hazards of dental fillings.

Silver-mercury fillings have never been tested for safety. “The amalgam question will never be solved until we do a clinical trial like those we do with other medical devices,” says Aposhian.



“It’s really unclear what’s going on with dental amalgams,” says Stern, who notes that the issue is complicated by the potential for panic and lawsuits. “It’s a snake pit.”

[HuronMan]

Yes, they used to bring it out in science class in school, enough for each table, and we would push it around with our fingers or roll in around in the palms of our hands. We weren't stupid enough to eat it!

[jim_trent]

Same here. When an article starts out as wrong as this, I don't bother reading the rest. It is obviously worthless information.

[GadareneDemoniac]

Exactly right! In high school, practically every boy in my school rubbed mercury on coins to make them shiny. That was 40 years ago, and we lived to tell the tale!

We also used to roll the little "balls" of mercury around on desk tops and try to race them.

This article is a solid example of the sorry state of journalism today and the general sissification of America.

[Hornet19]

Ditto. Our highschool science teacher used to let us uncork the mercury bottle, pour an amount about the size of a quarter in our hands and pour it back and forth from hand to hand....it was a hoot playing with the stuff. Oh, that was 1968.

[Rokurota]

From the article:

"But troubling evidence suggests that methylmercury in fish might cause heart disease."

So can we sue all the health gurus who said eating fish three times a week is good for the heart?

Damned if we do...damned if we don't.

[babylontoday]

I broke thermometers and played with it too. I also eat a lot of tuna..raw. Guess my LUCK must be about to run out.

[Truth29]

Ditto. How many of us used to break thermometers and rub the mercury on pennies?

[CivilWarguy]

This is a scare article that wishes to frighten people. Discover magazine printed letters in response. See the letters at

http://www.discover.com/letters/letters-may05/?page=2

Note that the scientists who wrote in dissed the article.

[facedown]

I can't believe I'm the first on this thread to say, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

[Red Badger]

A single drop on a human hand can be irreversibly fatal.

HOGWASH!

I played with mercury many times as a child and have been around it professionally for years. There's nothing wrong with PURE mercury. It's the OXIDES of mercury that are dangerous..................ack!......