Mercury occurs naturally in the environment. According to FDA toxicologist Mike Bolger, Ph.D., approximately 2,700 to 6,000 tons of mercury are released annually into the atmosphere naturally by degassing from the Earth's crust and oceans. Another 2,000 to 3,000 tons are released annually into the atmosphere by human activities, primarily from burning household and industrial wastes, and especially from fossil fuels such as coal.
The Hawke
Have you been living in a cave? You just discovered this? Bush has been performing sexual (and legal/financial) favors for his chums in the utility industry. He's given them a free pass to do absolutely nothing about coal-burning power plants. As you said, some mercury releases occur naturally, but some don't. Write to the pig in the White House and tell him you're aware of his crimes. Then, vote correctly and send him back to his so-called "ranch".
toxicologist
I posted the reference and part of the article for information only!
You and idiot Doug, seem to think that you can make up people's mind for them.
The Hawke
paghat wrote:
Idiot schmidiot. I in no way suggested otherwise with my post, but only elaborated the points you quoted & provided further citations for the stiff FDA warnings. So you're just an oversensitive splash of old man sputum.
your pal, paggers
don't feed it, Paggers. maddie
P.S. Here is a link to an interview if you'd like to follow up on this issue:
Give it up, Kanater. The election is over, you guys didn't even have a candidate this year.
Poor Hawke another victim of a rectal cranial inversion!
You obviously can't read....
Ya gotta HAVE a mind to make up!
The binary thinking alarm just went off. I'm not enthused with Kerry, but that is in NO way related to the reality of what Bush has done to please his puppeteers in the utility industry. You know that.
Right, it's not in thermometers anymore. But I can remember breaking a thermometer as a kid, rollikng the mercury around in the palm of my hand, & putting it in a small pill bottle to keep in a little rock collection -- then being sad that it evaporated. Its dangers were not unknown yet at the time every household had several easily broken glass thermometers laying about, for checking fevers or weather thermometers. That's a danger now of the past.
It was once widely used as a medicine for treatment of minor & severe illnesses from acne to syphyllus. Its side-effects included kidney failure, dissolving the spine & other bone loss, gum loss, tooth loss, nail discoloration, hair loss, Crohn's disease & other severe gastrointestinal illness, cardiovascular disease, severe fatigue, mental deterioration, memory loss, moodiness, & madness, palsy, seizure disorders, blindness, deafness, damage to central nervous system, neurological disorders, language difficulty, diminished motor skills, Cushing's syndrome, endocrine disturbances.
When a large toxic exposure occurs the health issues that result are severe & unmistakable. At lower but persistent exposures, mercury may pass undetected as the cause of Guillian-Barre syndrome, long-term memory loss, dementia, & senility, colitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, & many other problems for which a causal link to mercury is difficult to prove but which many researchers suspect. Dental amalgam, normal amounts of mercury in even wild-caught fish, & evaporative levels accumulating in basements, may well be contributing factors.
"Causal link" is the key word here. Many health problems have been shown beyond any statistical dought to have an increased incidence in people with mercury in their teeth. They study that started the debat was a 1993 compilation of 1,569 patients from four countries with an array of minor symptoms potentially associated with mercury poisoning, chiefly memory difficulties & chronic fatigue (another area difficult to quantify beyond each patient's own subjectivity). All 1,569 patients had their dental amalgams removed, with an 80% recovery rate for the sufferers. This is a highly indicative study, but it analyzed existing case studies that were not set up to prove any causal link. But a second study of 2,000 additional cases undertaken in Germany had the same high rates of recovery after removal of mercury amalgams.
The American Dental Association has remained stubborn about acting on such findings on the basis of there being no "causal link" firmly established. And by now they don't dare take a belated stand or dentists will risk being sued out of existance by everyone with so much as a headache or recurring fatigue because all mercury fillings done since the early 1990s can certainly be regarded as legally & medically a known risk that dentists consciously decided to ignore. Such lawsuits are already being brought, which puts the ADA in the sorry position of having to support growing numbers of dentists who've done the wrong thing, & their best method of support right now is to deny it is the wrong thing to do. The ADA actively threatens anti-amalgam dentists who speak openly about the current science, because the ADA rightly believes such concerned dentists who refuse to stick to the party line are a threat to dentists collectively. And dentists have left the ADA in droves over this issue; half of all dentists under the age of thirty-five with more modern awareness of their trade never join the ADA at all.
Yet the studies keep coming. A University of Kentucky study established conclusively that people who die of Alzheimer syndrome have twice as much mercury in their systems as is normal. Low-level but ongoing exposure from such sources as fillings have been implicated "a possible factor" in multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, & Parkinson's disease. The near impossibility of turning statistical likelihood into definitive causal link is what made it possible for the tobacco industry to pretend for decades that cigarettes were harmless, & permitted clean up of asbestos to be put off for more than fifty years after it was nominally known to be extremely hazardous. If the government declared dental amalgams definitively harmful, the lawsuits would increase by factors of thousands. The hope is that the dental industry will voluntarily correct its behavior before that is necessary, but it will probably take government action before what does need to be done is done.
But for the greater whop-a-doodle levels of sickness that are not so frought with subjectivity, & for which causal links are firmly established, exposures must generally be greater than from amalgams, needing the extra kick of industrial activity, waste disposal, spills, contaminated products such as Chinese medicines or imported facial creams, or such grotesque cases as the Illinois boy who stole mercury from a school lab, covered his body with it to play Tin Man of Oz, permanently damaging himself neurologically & making the family home uninhabitable for ten months with expensive clean-up by the EPA. Other severe cases include eating contaminated pork & farm-fish that had been given mercury-contaminated feeds, contaminated water, living near or working in mines or along rivers into which mining contaminants are dumped, or near coal-burning plants or plants that use boilers, or near medical & hazardous waste incinerators.
After a couple centuries western physicians finally caught on & stopped recommending it for illnesses it was more apt to cause than cure. But in Chinese & Tibetan herbal medicines or dietary supplements, the most active ingredients are frequently mercury & arsenic. Herbal hypochondriacs who have Romantic superstitions about Chinese Traditional Medicine are at particular risk. One study of Chinese herbal compounds, undertaken by the California Department of Health Services, ran analyses on 251 Asian herbal medicines & found that 14% contained toxic levels of mercury, 14% toxic levels of arsenic, besides such deadly herbs as birthwart, monkshood, & foxglove that are banned for such use in the US & never listed as confessed ingredients. A UK study found that some Chinese medicines as much or more than 11% mercury, which was either not mentioned on the labels or was mentioned only in Chinese; other Chinese medicines purporting to be herbal turned out to contain as their active ingredients cortico steroids or glibenclamide (a drug for diabetics). So when "believers" in this crap feel it really has an effect on them, they're quite right! But do they know that what they're responding to is not Natural Herbal Medicines, but steroids, diabetic drugs, mercury, & arsenic?
The "wise" Chinese Traditional take on mercury is it causes longevity & good health, basing its use on astrological charts rather than on effects on human subjects. The majority of the products are of the sucker-born-every-minute type.
-paghat the ratgirl
You're only half right. It ain't over & even a dog's pecker wearing a straw hat has a good chance of being rightly perceived as the superior choice when Bush is the other opption. But you're right insofar as it is a bloody shame there wasn't a candidate so qualified that it didn't need to be this down-to-the-wire photo-finish before we know if Bush gets to be Lord of Destruction four more years.
-paghat the ratgirl
On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 10:59:36 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@netscape.net (paghat) posted:
Yer funny. Smart, too. Probably cuter than a daisy in a cornfield.
But the French-looking one doesn't really stand a chance. Never did. So solly.
But Spring blossoms will still burst forth next year, so who rilly, rilly cares?
What I want to know is will my Rosemary die this winter like last winter? Yeah, I know, it's hard to die twice, but --
Implanted
Dang girl! Now I know more about mercury poisoning than I would have ever imagined :) Thanks for the info... seriously. That was quite intersting!
Kate
| > Kate | | Right, it's not in thermometers anymore. But I can remember breaking a | thermometer as a kid, rollikng the mercury around in the palm of my hand, | & putting it in a small pill bottle to keep in a little rock collection -- | then being sad that it evaporated. Its dangers were not unknown yet at the | time every household had several easily broken glass thermometers laying | about, for checking fevers or weather thermometers. That's a danger now of | the past. | | It was once widely used as a medicine for treatment of minor & severe | illnesses from acne to syphyllus. Its side-effects included kidney | failure, dissolving the spine & other bone loss, gum loss, tooth loss, | nail discoloration, hair loss, Crohn's disease & other severe | gastrointestinal illness, cardiovascular disease, severe fatigue, mental | deterioration, memory loss, moodiness, & madness, palsy, seizure | disorders, blindness, deafness, damage to central nervous system, | neurological disorders, language difficulty, diminished motor skills, | Cushing's syndrome, endocrine disturbances. | | When a large toxic exposure occurs the health issues that result are | severe & unmistakable. At lower but persistent exposures, mercury may pass | undetected as the cause of Guillian-Barre syndrome, long-term memory loss, | dementia, & senility, colitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, & many other | problems for which a causal link to mercury is difficult to prove but | which many researchers suspect. Dental amalgam, normal amounts of mercury | in even wild-caught fish, & evaporative levels accumulating in basements, | may well be contributing factors. | | "Causal link" is the key word here. Many health problems have been shown | beyond any statistical dought to have an increased incidence in people | with mercury in their teeth. They study that started the debat was a 1993 | compilation of 1,569 patients from four countries with an array of minor | symptoms potentially associated with mercury poisoning, chiefly memory | difficulties & chronic fatigue (another area difficult to quantify beyond | each patient's own subjectivity). All 1,569 patients had their dental | amalgams removed, with an 80% recovery rate for the sufferers. This is a | highly indicative study, but it analyzed existing case studies that were | not set up to prove any causal link. But a second study of 2,000 | additional cases undertaken in Germany had the same high rates of recovery | after removal of mercury amalgams. | | The American Dental Association has remained stubborn about acting on such | findings on the basis of there being no "causal link" firmly established. | And by now they don't dare take a belated stand or dentists will risk | being sued out of existance by everyone with so much as a headache or | recurring fatigue because all mercury fillings done since the early 1990s | can certainly be regarded as legally & medically a known risk that | dentists consciously decided to ignore. Such lawsuits are already being | brought, which puts the ADA in the sorry position of having to support | growing numbers of dentists who've done the wrong thing, & their best | method of support right now is to deny it is the wrong thing to do. The | ADA actively threatens anti-amalgam dentists who speak openly about the | current science, because the ADA rightly believes such concerned dentists | who refuse to stick to the party line are a threat to dentists | collectively. And dentists have left the ADA in droves over this issue; | half of all dentists under the age of thirty-five with more modern | awareness of their trade never join the ADA at all. | | Yet the studies keep coming. A University of Kentucky study established | conclusively that people who die of Alzheimer syndrome have twice as much | mercury in their systems as is normal. Low-level but ongoing exposure from | such sources as fillings have been implicated "a possible factor" in | multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, & Parkinson's disease. The near | impossibility of turning statistical likelihood into definitive causal | link is what made it possible for the tobacco industry to pretend for | decades that cigarettes were harmless, & permitted clean up of asbestos to | be put off for more than fifty years after it was nominally known to be | extremely hazardous. If the government declared dental amalgams | definitively harmful, the lawsuits would increase by factors of thousands. | The hope is that the dental industry will voluntarily correct its behavior | before that is necessary, but it will probably take government action | before what does need to be done is done. | | But for the greater whop-a-doodle levels of sickness that are not so | frought with subjectivity, & for which causal links are firmly | established, exposures must generally be greater than from amalgams, | needing the extra kick of industrial activity, waste disposal, spills, | contaminated products such as Chinese medicines or imported facial creams, | or such grotesque cases as the Illinois boy who stole mercury from a | school lab, covered his body with it to play Tin Man of Oz, permanently | damaging himself neurologically & making the family home uninhabitable for | ten months with expensive clean-up by the EPA. Other severe cases include | eating contaminated pork & farm-fish that had been given | mercury-contaminated feeds, contaminated water, living near or working in | mines or along rivers into which mining contaminants are dumped, or near | coal-burning plants or plants that use boilers, or near medical & | hazardous waste incinerators. | | After a couple centuries western physicians finally caught on & stopped | recommending it for illnesses it was more apt to cause than cure. But in | Chinese & Tibetan herbal medicines or dietary supplements, the most active | ingredients are frequently mercury & arsenic. Herbal hypochondriacs who | have Romantic superstitions about Chinese Traditional Medicine are at | particular risk. One study of Chinese herbal compounds, undertaken by the | California Department of Health Services, ran analyses on 251 Asian herbal | medicines & found that 14% contained toxic levels of mercury, 14% toxic | levels of arsenic, besides such deadly herbs as birthwart, monkshood, & | foxglove that are banned for such use in the US & never listed as | confessed ingredients. A UK study found that some Chinese medicines as | much or more than 11% mercury, which was either not mentioned on the | labels or was mentioned only in Chinese; other Chinese medicines | purporting to be herbal turned out to contain as their active ingredients | cortico steroids or glibenclamide (a drug for diabetics). So when | "believers" in this crap feel it really has an effect on them, they're | quite right! But do they know that what they're responding to is not | Natural Herbal Medicines, but steroids, diabetic drugs, mercury, & | arsenic? | | The "wise" Chinese Traditional take on mercury is it causes longevity & | good health, basing its use on astrological charts rather than on effects | on human subjects. The majority of the products are of the | sucker-born-every-minute type. | | -paghat the ratgirl | | -- | "Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher. | "Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature. | -from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers" | Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl:
One other thing to note...
The toxicity of Mercury is more evident when body weight is lower. This is pretty much a general truth about all toxic materials. The real meaning is that kids are more susceptible to poisons than are adults, so what may not affect you, holds much greater opportunities to affect a child.
This is true for cigarette smoking as well. I firmly stand behind the fact that cigarette smoking and second-hand cigarette smoke represents the leading cause of asthma in children. And once the lungs are damaged at a young age, they remain damaged for life. People do not just get asthma all of a sudden for some unfathomed reason. I will leave these statements open to debate. :-)
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