Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things

Author:Smith, Rick;Lourie, Bruce [Smith, Rick;Lourie, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781582436760
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2009-12-10T05:00:00+00:00

Medical researchers discovered that mercury poses a health risk even at very low, continuous doses at about the same time that scientists studying atmospheric mercury shifted focus from direct local emissions to pervasive global pollution. Teams of medical researchers studied children who live in the Faroe Islands (in the North Sea) and the Seychelles Islands (in the Indian Ocean).35 They chose these places because they’re far away from any direct sources of mercury and because fish is a major part of the local diet in both locales. After years of study they determined that there is no safe level of mercury. The old way of thinking (that there is a “safe threshold” and that we can pollute up to that level with no effect) was finally dismissed. Studies, the most famous of which were carried out by Dr. Philippe Grandjean and his team of researchers in the Faroe Islands, found “cognitive deficit” and “impaired motor skills” in children with very low levels of mercury in their blood.36 The mercury the children were consuming did not come from a local factory dumping waste into or near fishing grounds; it was simply the background mercury found in the ocean today.

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