A massive outbreak of methylmercury poisoning took place in the winter of 1971-1972 due to the consumption of homemade bread contaminated with a methylmercury fungicide. The longitudinal analysis of the mother's head hair, collected after delivery of the baby, provided a means of recapitulating exposure to methylmercury during pregnancy. Methylmercury is incorporated into newly formed hair at a...

Methylmercury is a globally distributed neurotoxin, endocrine disruptor, and teratogen, the effects of which on wildlife at environmentally relevant levels are largely unknown. In birds, foraging efficiency and learning may be sensitive endpoints for sublethal methylmercury toxicity, and these endpoints also may be biologically relevant at the population level. In the present study, groups of w...

Exposure to methylmercury causes severe damage to various tissues and organs in humans. Although a variety of fluorescent chemosensors have been exploited, only few biological monitoring systems for organomercury species have been described to date. In this report, we describe an irreversible rhodamine chemosensor for the detection of methylmercury and real-time monitoring of methylmercury in l...

The Panel has been asked to assess the possible risks to human health from the consumption of foods contaminated with mercury and methylmercury, based on intake estimates for Europe and the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) established recently by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). Mercury is an environmental contaminant that is present in fish and seafood pr...

Mercury and its compounds have a wide spectrum of toxicities depending upon the chemical forms and modes of exposure. Among the various chemical forms, mercury vapor and methylmercury are well known and established as neurotoxic agents. Since the disasters in Minamata and Iraq, in which fetuses were more susceptible than adults to methylmercury exposure, much attention has been focused on prena...

Human exposure to relatively low levels of methylmercury is worrying, especially in terms of its genotoxicity. It is currently unknown as to whether exposure to low levels of mercury (below established limits) is safe. Genotoxicity was already shown in lymphocytes, but studies with cells of the CNS (as the main target organ) are scarce. Moreover, disturbances in the cell cycle and cellular prol...

..................................................................................................................... 23 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 25 Methods...................................................................................................................... 28 Subjects ............