Mercury concerns on the rise
By Jon Brodkin / Daily News Staff
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Is eating fish really good for you?
More than 20 percent of Americans tested for mercury in a nationwide study
have
levels of the toxic metal exceeding a government advisory level, a finding that
has led one
researcher to declare the country faces an "unprecedented public health
emergency."
High mercury exposure most frequently occurs in people with diets heavy in
fish, a
food that's often touted as healthful.
The study, which included several MetroWest residents and calculated
mercury
exposure using hair samples, found that about half of people who eat seven or
more
servings of fish per month have mercury levels exceeding the Environmental
Protection
Agency human health standard of 1 part per million. Having silver-colored dental
fillings
also increases mercury exposure, researchers found.
The EPA health standard was devised for children and women of childbearing
age to
protect fetuses from neurological damage, but researchers said anyone, including
men,
should be concerned about mercury levels that exceed the advisory level.
Researcher Richard Maas acknowledged the study's results may be skewed
because the
subjects volunteered themselves, so the findings were not based on a random
sample. But
a previous national survey found that 12 percent of women of childbearing age
have
mercury levels above the health standard, and Maas believes the two studies
together
show the country faces a large problem.
"Somewhere between 12 and 20 percent of the U.S. public have a documented
exposure to a toxin above an official government standard," said Maas,
co-director of the
Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina-Asheville,
which is
conducting the mercury study. "If you look at it that way, this is an
unprecedented public
health emergency. Never before has there been a toxin to which the public was so
ubiquitously exposed."
Maas' study, which includes more than 5,000 subjects so far, is the largest
ever to
document human exposure to mercury, he said.
Testing for mercury
Lisa Eck of Natick, a professor of English at Framingham State College who
participated
in the project, has decided to rethink her consumption of fish after receiving
results she
found disconcerting.
"I am disappointed because it's hard not to conceive of fish as a healthy
food
alternative," Eck said. "I think the chief reversal I have to think about is
I've been proud of
the fact I've convinced toddlers -- my twins -- to eat fish. I thought that was
a great
triumph as a parent. Now I have to do more research."
Eck's mercury level was .88 parts per million, just below the government
health
advisory. Maas said that's high enough to consider reducing fish consumption.
"That's getting up there," he said. "If I had a .88, in a couple months I
would get
another test done to see if it's going up or down. You are flirting closer to a
level of
concern."
Eck was one of three local residents who agreed to participate in the
mercury project
and be interviewed by the Daily News. The others -- Jacquie Kittler of Natick
and Maureen
Bligh of Millbury -- both had mercury levels well below Eck's. Kittler clocked
in at .23 parts
per million and Bligh, who is a paginator for Community Newspaper Co. (which
includes
the Daily News) in Framingham, had a level of .28.
Bligh, who recently gave birth to her son, Jason, and frequently ate fish
while pregnant,
was relieved to learn she is well below the level of concern.
"I actually thought they would be a little higher because I did eat kind of
a lot of fish,"
she said.
Kittler, who has two young children, said she was careful to avoid fish
during
pregnancy.
"I didn't eat fish at all during my pregnancy. I was told not to," she
said.
Source of the problem
Fish carry high levels of mercury largely because of emissions from
coal-fired power
plants. The biggest concern related to mercury exposure is neurologic damage it
can
cause developing fetuses. The EPA has said 1 in 6 women of childbearing age have
enough
mercury in their bodies to potentially impair an unborn child.
The agency issued new rules regulating mercury emissions from coal-fired
power
plants in March, but at least 11 states, including Massachusetts, sued the
agency because
they believe the rules aren't stringent enough.
The regulations are expected to cut emissions 70 percent by 2018, but
represent a
reversal from a Clinton-era decision that would have forced plants to install
the
"maximum achievable control technology" by 2008.
Most debate over mercury's health effects focuses on neurological disorders
in
children, but the metal is toxic to nearly every organ in the body, including
those of
adults, Maas said. And women aren't the only ones at risk: some studies indicate
men with
elevated mercury levels have increased risk of heart disease.
The EPA has advised women and young children to limit consumption of
certain types
of fish and to avoid ones with high levels of mercury, including shark,
swordfish and king
mackerel.
But the effects of mercury on adults is a subject of debate. Local doctors
said they
rarely see incidents of mercury poisoning.
"It's pretty rare. It's like lead poisoning. You've got to be looking for
it," said Dr. Mark
Lemons, head of Newton-Wellesley Hospital's emergency department.
Dr. Michael Shannon, a Children's Hospital Boston physician who is a senior
toxicologist for the Massachusetts and Rhode Island poison control center, said
he treats
about one or two cases of mercury poisoning each year. Patients with high
mercury
exposures are treated with chelators, medication that binds to mercury and
ejects it from
the body in urine, he said.
"It's a little unusual to have someone whose degree of exposure is so
astronomical that
they need medication to get it out," Shannon said.
There is disagreement even among federal agencies about what level of
mercury
exposure is safe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example,
thinks the
1 part per million level used by the EPA is too low to pose a threat to women
and unborn
children, said John Risher, a chemical manager for mercury at the Agency for
Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry, a sister agency of the CDC.
"CDC would not consider it a level of concern, nor would the Department of
Health and
Human Services. It would just indicate there is some exposure," Risher said.
But Maas said some people are so sensitive to mercury's effects they can
become sick
at levels below the EPA standard.
"We're seeing more and more of those people because we have clinics all
over the
country filled with people who have been diagnosed with mercury poisoning," Maas
said.
Maas also said the government uses economic feasibility studies to help
determine
acceptable risks to deadly toxins. But the typical person deciding what is
healthy and what
isn't shouldn't be concerned about the financial impact pollution controls would
have on
industry, he said.
The Environmental Quality Institute study, which is being cosponsored by
Greenpeace
and the Sierra Club, released its preliminary results last October, based on
analyses of the
first 1,449 hair samples.
Maas wasn't impressed by the government's response to the report.
"You would think the response would be an all-out effort to lower the
sources of the
mercury," he said. "Yet right after we published our preliminary study...the
Bush
administration's response was to go and weaken the clean air standards and
actually roll
back the controls that were supposed to go on power plants for controlling
mercury."
Testing continues
Final results from the Environmental Quality Institute survey are expected
to be
released in September. People can still participate by logging onto
www.sierraclub.org/
mercury and ordering a testing kit for $25. The price is low compared to a
mercury test's
typical cost of $60 to $100, said Christina Kreitzer, a media coordinator for
the Sierra Club
in San Francisco.
The Sierra Club's goal is to spur legislative action and raise awareness of
the dangers
of mercury exposure, she said. Researchers aim to test at least 10,000 people.
"We wanted, first of all, to educate the public about the issue," she said.
"Coal-fired
power plants are releasing this toxin into our air, that rains down into the
water and it
starts accumulating in the fish we eat on the dinner table. A lot of people,
especially
women, aren't making the connection between eating the fish and polluting their
bodies."

Jon Brodkin can be reached at 508-626-4424 or jbrodkin@....