Mercury exposure is the second-most common cause of toxic metal poisoning. Public health concern over mercury exposure, due to contamination of fish with methylmercury and the elemental mercury content of dental amalgams, has long been a topic of political and medical debate. Although the toxicology of mercury is complex, there is evidence for antioxidant protection in the prevention of neurolo...

The Effect of Methylmercury. Tetraethyl Lead. and Sodium Arsenite on the Humoral Immune Response in Mice. BLAKLEY. B. R .. SISODIA. C. S .. AND MUKKUR. T. K. ( 19801. Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 52, 245-254. Male mice were exposed to methylmercury. tetraethyl lead. or sodium arsenite for 3 weeks in the drinking water at three or four con· centrations ranging from 0.5 to 10.0 ppm. The humoral comp...

BACKGROUND Mercury is known to bioaccumulate and to magnify in marine mammals, which is a cause of great concern in terms of their general health. In particular, the immune system is known to be susceptible to long-term mercury exposure. The aims of the present study were (1) to determine the mercury level in the blood of free-ranging harbour seals from the North Sea and (2) to examine the link...

Unborn children are exposed to environmental pollutants via the placenta, and there is a causal relationship between maternal intake of pollutants and fetal exposure. Placental examination is an effective way for acquiring data for estimating fetal exposure. We analyzed the concentrations of 104 congeners of persistent organic pollutants, seven organotin compounds, five heavy metals, and methyl...

A detailed understanding of the formation of the potent neurotoxic methylmercury is needed to explain the large observed variability in methylmercury levels in aquatic systems. While it is known that organic matter interacts strongly with mercury, the role of organic matter composition in the formation of methylmercury in aquatic systems remains poorly understood. Here we show that phytoplankto...

The danger of methylmercury poisoning appears to be slight when the environment is not directly contaminated with methylmercury. Sediments rapidly bind mercury and decrease its availability to aquatic organisms. Sediments further have a greater propensity to demethylate than to methylate mercury. In noncontaminated aquatic ecosystems, the concentrations of methylmercury and inorganic mercury ar...

Umbilical cord tissue was obtained from 50 births in the Faroe Islands, where high mercury intake is due to ingestion of pilot whale meat. The mercury concentration correlated significantly with the frequency of maternal whale meat dinners during pregnancy and with mercury concentrations in umbilical cord blood and in maternal hair. The results were compared with published values for mercury in...

Seafood is the main source of dietary mercury (Hg) exposure and it can be affected by species, origin, tissue, processing. The objective this study was to investigate total Hg in shrimp mussels from retail market, compare body tissue distribution cooking time, estimate exposure. A 126 samples (whiteleg Atlantic seabob South American mussel) were analyzed. Total quantified combustion atomic abso...