What a crock! I remember as a kid we used to play with mercury on our desk tops at school. 'Course, that might explain the two heads some of my friends have! :)
This foolishness is just like the panic over asbestos on furnaces and pipes and roofs and siding and linoleum. In my house four generations of the family have lived with that stuff down in the cellar. We've died from just about everything EXCEPT asbestosis and mesothelioma.
I remember a science teacher telling us to be careful with a little bit of mercury that he poured into our hands! We needed to be careful with it, because it was so expensive! He did tell us that we needed to wash our hands before lunch, though.
Mark
Me too! Us kids in school would push blobs of mercury around on the wooden desk tops with our fingers while the teacher looked on. The teacher would explain it in the thermometer and once broke the thermometer to prove it. How did we survive for half a century beyond doing that?