Review on the toxicity of ethylmercury, including its presence as a preservative in biological and pharmaceutical products.

The interest in ethylmercury has been raised lately by a letter sent to The Lancet suggesting that ethylmercurythiosalicylate preservative (product names: Thimerosal, Thiomersal, Merthiolate) in hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) caused severe ethylmercury intoxication.1 Most likely as a reverberation of this letter, the Public Health Service, US Department of Health and Human Services and the American Academy of Pediatrics published a joint statement on Thimerosal in vaccines.2 As the nature of this statement has not required documentation on the toxicity of ethylmercury and the authors of the letter sent to The Lancet made the diagnosis without the prudent evaluation of published data, this survey attempts to fill the gap. It is not concerned with contact allergy3 or with acrodynia (Pink disease). The only reported case of acrodynia was the result of regular injection of gamma-globulin with ethylmercury preservative to a 20-year-old man who had a history of chronic skin rash and sensitivity to sulfonamide drugs.4