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If you fully realized the health dangers of mercury, you wouldn't be so willing to make this some lame states-rights issue. A small quanity of mercury, say a thermometer-full, can contaminate a LARGE area, especially if it makes its way to the groundwater.

Just what is so bad about mercury?

As a child, we played with it, coating pennys so they would like dimes. We let it roll around in our hands, arms, etc.

We never ingested any, but had plenty of contact with it.

I turned 50 today and as far as I know, I've suffered no ill effects.

I'm not too concerned. My Dad tells us how as a child in Louisville, KY, he and his buds would wait for dry spells. Then they would slip into the storm sewers with a empty coke bottle and a big spoon.

They would navigate the dry storm sewers, looking for the shiny puddles of mercury. They would scoop it up with the spoon and pour it into the empty coke bottle.

Once they had retrieved enough mercury, they would go back above ground and present the now full coke bottle to their Moms. Mom would keep the mercury under her sink ready to use again, as a drain cleaner.

Dad is 83 now and still going strong.

I'm sure mercury is toxic in some circumstances, inhaling the heated vapors for example. But, I'm not convinced that it's the toxic killer it has been made out to be.

I'm sure mercury is toxic in some circumstances, inhaling the heated vapors for example.

Inhaling the vapors of elemental mercury is not a good idea, as you've noted, but the real problem is that when it gets into the groundwater and into lakes and streams, bacteria convert the elemental mercury into organic mercury compounds like dimethyl mercury, which is highly, highly toxic. And the problem is animals, particularly fish and shellfish, build up levels of organic mercury within their tissues over their lifetimes - it gets concentrated in their bodies. So when people eat the fish or shellfish, it's potentially bad news over a lifetime of exposure, or especially for children.

Mercury's just bad news, all around. Perfectly acceptable substitutes exist for thermometers, so using them really makes sense, IMO...

Well, don't take my word for it. Here's a snippet from Los Alamos on the dangers of mercury...

Mercury is a virulent poison and is readily absorbed through the respiratory tract, the gastrointestinal tract, or through unbroken skin. It acts as a cumulative poison and dangerous levels are readily attained in air. Air saturated with mercury vapor at 20C contains a concentration that exceeds the toxic limit many times. The danger increases at higher temperatures. It is therefore important that mercury be handled with care.

I'm sure you and your dad are doing fine despite your experience with mercury. What I am saying is that if mercury is allowed to seep into water or whatnot and be atomized, it will spread and will find its way into the human blood system.

"As a child, we played with it, coating pennys so they would like dimes. "

Wow! That's using the WayBack machine. It was a cause of great joy and celebration whenever a thermometer broke during my childhood. We'd take a two sided razor blade (Yikes, at 8 years old to boot!) and chop up the mercury on a hardwood floor and see how many little balls we could make. When we got bored with that we'd scrape them all together and make a big puddle again.

Good thing Mom never noticed the scratches on the wood floor.