Mercury rising
Decades after the risks of this toxic metal became clear, pollution from mercury continues to increase

by Amy Brouillette
(editorials@boulderweekly.com)

In 1956, panic rippled through the tiny fishing village of Minamata, Japan. Villagers began suffering numbness in their limbs, blurred vision and dementia. Birds fell from the sky, and thousands of fish went belly up in the nearby bay.

For three decades, a local plastics and perfume company had been dumping toxic mercury into the surrounding waters—27 tons from 1932 to 1968—poisoning fish and villagers, more than 3,000 of whom contracted a central nervous system disorder now called Minamata Disease.

It was not the first time industry had been alerted to mercury's public health hazards. Hat makers in the 19th century used a mercury solution for turning fur into felt. Workers in the poorly ventilated factories were exposed to the toxic vapors, causing memory loss, tremors, slurred speech and depression, a kind of mercury poisoning known as Mad Hatters Syndrome.

Despite mounting evidence linking the neurotoxin to a host of conditions, including cardiovascular disease, birth defects and brain damage, industries continued over the next century to use mercury unregulated. Even today, and though alternatives exist, the toxin holds a regular spot in a long list of consumer products, including batteries, light bulbs, electronics, electrical switches, thermometers and computers.

Raining poison

Under pressure from environmentalists and lawmakers, industrial mercury emissions plummeted nearly 90 percent since the enactment of the 1990 Clean Air Act—in every industry, that is, except for its largest polluter, coal-fired power plants. Big Energy is the single largest source of industrial mercury emissions nationwide, producing one-third of all mercury pollution. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by January 2008.

A growing public movement to see utilities brought in compliance with federal clean-air standards heats up next month as EPA plans to issue a final ruling for power plant mercury emissions. Last year, the agency infuriated the opposition when it released an initial measure—a 29-percent reduction by 2008—that fails to meet the reduction standards required by the Clean Air Act.

"The EPA's proposed mercury standard is one of the most disturbingly flawed interpretations of the Clean Air Act I've witnessed," says Environmental Defense senior attorney Vickie Patton. The Boulder-based lawyer and ex-EPA counsel has fought to curb industrial mercury emissions in the name of public health for the past 14 years.

Despite existing alternative technologies that could reduce mercury by an estimated 90 percent, the EPA's proposal would mandate a 70 percent mercury-emission reduction by 2018—a decade late and nearly 15 percent short by national standards established by the Clean Air Act.

A lesser known provision of the plan, says Patton, would also exclude power plants in the west from any mercury controls until 2018 in response to the growing electricity demands in this region.

"Unfortunately, this issue is unfolding in a highly political way," she says. "What's getting lost in all this is the fact that mercury-controlled technology exists to reduce mercury-emissions substantially in the next few years."

Last June, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by California Democrat Nancy Pelosi teamed up to pressure the EPA to enforce tighter mercury-emission standards. In a letter signed by 180 members of Congress, including Colorado's Mark Udall, they urged then EPA director Michael Leavitt to issue a review of mercury-reducing technology, as well as a supplemental ruling that complies with federal clean air standards by the March 15, 2005, deadline.

Patton predicts the expected proposal could inspire a round of new legal battles between environmentalists and the EPA.

"I anticipate there will be a large group that will take a hard look at whether or not to challenge the EPA in court," she says.

As policy-makers drag their feet and hash it out in the courts, consumers face an onslaught of new warnings about mercury consumption. Humans are exposed to mercury primarily through diet, as airborne pollution from coal-fired power plants rains back down into nearby rivers, lakes and streams, contaminating the fish we eat. In 2002, coal-fired power plants released 92,000 pounds of mercury from their stacks, according to the EPA. While other sources of mercury pollution exist—from water treatment facilities, chlorine factories and gold mining—commercial energy production is by far the nation's most egregious polluter.

In 2002, the EPA reported that virtually every freshwater fish contains some levels of methyl mercury, the especially menacing form of the toxin that manifests in fish. A persistent bioaccumulative toxin, or PBT, methyl mercury is in a special class of chemicals, along with dioxin, that amplifies as it moves up the food chain. As smaller organisms and fish are eaten by larger fish, and then eventually humans, PBT levels increase through a process called bioaccumulation.

Mothers (and potential mothers), fetuses, infants and children are most at risk from mercury consumption. Even small amounts of methyl mercury can impair learning ability, language and motor skills. In high doses, it can cause brain damage. A fetus absorbs methyl mercury through fetal tissue when a mother eats contaminated fish. Infants risk exposure through breast milk and children through eating fish. While the fetus is most vulnerable, researchers say all kids are at risk because their nervous systems are still developing.

In 2001, the Centers for Disease Control published findings from the first-ever nationwide study of human hair and blood, in which one in 12 women of child-bearing age tested positive for unsafe levels of methyl mercury. Last year, researchers at the University of North Carolina issued preliminary findings from a study that estimates one in six women now have levels of mercury that exceed EPA-recommended limits.

In March 2004, the FDA issued an advisory for women, infants and children to avoid eating mercury-rich ocean fish—swordfish, King mackerel, shark and tilefish in particular. The agency recommends women of childbearing age should eat 12 ounces, or two servings, of ocean and shellfish that are lower in mercury (shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon) per week. Because albacore tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna, the FDA recommends eating no more than six ounces, or one average meal, of albacore tuna per week. Because freshwater fish generally contain higher mercury levels than ocean fish, the FDA recommends eating no more than a single six-ounce serving per week.

Toxic industrial complex

Last August, Marie Flowers, a retired public schoolteacher in Roanoke, Va., was on vacation in Tennessee when one of her mercury-based dental fillings broke, flooding her mouth with a potent metallic taste. She found a local dentist who gave her a temporary cap.

A month later and still tasting metal, Flowers had the offending mercury filing removed. The dentist drilled out the filling, using no dental dam to protect her from the toxic vapors. When she left, the metallic taste in her mouth was even worse.

Five days later, she noticed a bizarre tickling in her brain. Next came debilitating headaches. She began to forget simple things—where she parked her car in a parking lot, why she had left the house. A few weeks later, she started suffering shooting pains that felt like electrical charges in her brain, combined with an intense, burning sensation. "My brain felt like it was literally vibrating inside my skull."

Doctors suspected MS. Other symptoms pointed to it: confusion, lethargy, slurred speech. But after months of tests, including a spinal tap, that yielded no diagnosis, Flowers started investigating on her own. She found her way to the Mount Rogers Clinic, an alternative health center in Trout Dale, Va., where doctors revealed she suffered from heavy-metal toxicity.

Amid a tide of alarming consumer warnings against consuming the toxin, dentists continue to implant mercury-based amalgam fillings in the majority of American mouths with the full endorsement of the American Dental Association.

"It's basically an issue of CYA (covering your ass)," explains Dr. Walter Crinnion, director of the Environmental Center of Excellence at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in Tempe, Ariz. "It would bankrupt the ADA with lawsuits if they were to admit how dangerous mercury fillings truly are."

One of the nation's leading researchers and experts on how to spot and treat heavy-metal toxicity, Crinnion says mercury is a multi-pronged poison.

"It is a mitochondrial toxin that attacks the body's cells, which results in exhaustion and lethargy. It is a neurotoxin, which produces anxiety, depression, mood swings and memory loss," he says. "Mercury also attacks the immune system, which causes chronic viral and auto-immune problems."

Crinnion uses a urine-based mercury test to measure the presence of heavy metals in patients. He says while hair analyses work well for testing methyl mercury from eating fish, mercury from amalgam filling are "elemental," or pure, and do not bind well to hair.

To purge heavy-metal toxins from the system, Crinnion's therapy consists of a prescription drug called DMSA combined with vitamin supplements—including Vitamin C, selenium and magnesium—and colon cleansing. A traditional heavy-metal antidote used by doctors since the '50s, DMSA is a non-toxic water-soluble pill that is proven safe even for infants.

While his therapy is effective, it's not easy.

"Whenever you start mobilizing those heavy toxins, your body is going to react," says Crinnion.

But he says consumers can do two things to reduce mercury exposure.

"People should immediately get all the mercury out of your mouth," he says. "Every time you chew gum, grind your teeth, drink hot tea, or even brush your teeth, mercury vapors are released into your system."

He also recommends avoiding all freshwater fish and the bigger ocean fish like shark, halibut and tuna. Yet he says this does not mean health-conscious consumers should abandon altogether the omega-3-rich resource fish provide. Wild Alaskan salmon is actually low in mercury—despite the bad rap it's gotten over the past few years—and fits well into a healthy diet when eaten in moderation, he says.

Marie Flowers, who is now on a similar detox therapy to what Crinnion recommends, reports her health has improved.

"Some days are worse than others—the headaches return and I end up in bed," she says.

Meanwhile, and sometimes from her bed, she's launched a public crusade against mercury fillings, becoming an outspoken consumer advocate.

"Dentists have to be held responsible for poisoning their patients," she says.

But dentists aren't the only ones who need to reconsider their use of the toxic metal. The mercury problem belongs to society as a whole because mercury is everywhere.

Armed with mounting evidence about mercury's real public-heath threat—along with a host of new and cost-effective alternative technologies—consumers and activists have joined together to force change from the bottom up.

"The EPA takes a risk-assessment approach," explains Joanna Underwood, president of INFORM Inc., an environmental and human health research group in New York City. "Instead, we need to take a more risk-avoidance approach."

Underwood packs heat: a powerful figure in the early environmental movement of the 1970s who later helped shape the Clean Air Act, she was a driving force behind implementing the EPA's toxic release inventory (TRI), a database where corporations disclose their pollution emissions to the public. She is an expert at mobilizing public issues into public policy—and a formidable opponent of the EPA.

"Consumers are the key to forcing industries to use better, cleaner technology," she says. "One of the toughest messages we can send to polluting companies comes in the form of not buying their toxic products."

For information on mercury-containing products and alternatives, go to www.informinc.org/fsmercalts.pdf. For information on mercury in fish and shellfish, go to www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html.

Mercury facts

Mercury (Hg), sometimes known as quicksilver, is a heavy metal that occurs naturally in the environment and exists in different chemical forms:

Elemental mercury is the element's pure form and is the only heavy metal to take a liquid form at room temperature. It is used in thermometers and some electrical switches.

Inorganic mercury compounds, or mercury salts, more commonly found in nature, include mercuric sulphide (HgS), mercuric oxide (HgO) and mercuric chloride (HgCl2).

Organic mercury is formed when mercury combines with carbon and other elements. Methyl mercury, the most common organic mercury found in fish, is a persistent bioaccumulative toxin, or PBT, that concentrates in living tissue as it moves up the food chain.

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