Mercury's Medical Issues

Lead, a naturally occurring metal and can be used in almost everything. It can cause serious health issues if it is exposed for a long time, particularly in children as they are more susceptible to absorbing and retaining lead in their bodies. Each year, in the United States 310,000 of 1- to 5-year age group are found to have unsafe levels of lead in their blood, which can cause a wide range of symptoms. (1)

There are characteristics of Mercury that make it an appropriate target, and some that make it not. The different characteristics presented in the case are as follows:

Mercury also came up in science class. When first presented with the jumble of the periodic table, I scanned for mercury and couldn’t find it. It is there—between gold, which is also dense and soft, and thallium, which is also poisonous. But

Cadmium is dangerous because it can cause kidney failure. It travels in the blood toward the liver where it shares bonds with proteins. It then travels to the kidneys where it can gather.

The HAPI organization is fueling their mission on their fears about vaccinations. Dawn Winkler the executive director of the HAPI believed her infant died from mercury poisoning after receiving her vaccines. Mercury poisoning was never confirmed and medical professionals labeled the cause of death to be SIDS, also known as Sudden infant death syndrome. They use myths and make them frightening. The group’s main concern on vaccinations are the amounts of mercury. On the organizations website they pressure parents into choosing whether to vaccinate their children using the words “the most important decisions you will ever make for your child.” On a separate section of the website they say vaccines are supposed to be mercury free, which isn’t true. The reason why vaccines contain mercury and that is to kill any bacteria. They describe mercury as toxic in the tiniest amounts and never mention the fact that it has never shown to have harmful effects.

Mercury is a heavy metal with serious side effects like heart problems, digestive imbalance, loss of memory, breathing problems, ADD, depression, etc.

While liquid gold may be a modern allegory for something desirable, there is another liquid metal that is quite the opposite of desirable. Mercury is an unusual metal in that in its standard elemental form it is a liquid. Due to the increase in industry over the last 100 years, Mercury levels have risen, which cause serious damage to humans.

Mercury is an element that can be found in our environment through air, water and soil. Being exposed to constant levels of mercury may be detrimental to one’s overall health since it can impact the nervous, digestive and immune systems of human (WHO). In 1960, the demand of Mercury (Hg) increased significantly as it was needed in many commercial and medical practices, despite its high toxicity levels (dwivedi). Thus, the increase in mercury consumption was due to industrialization. Mercury should be gaining increased medical concerns as it can impact the lives of several classes of society. In Canada, it is found that the vast majority of marine mammals contain methylmercury (MeHg) (Laird). Methylmercury is highly more lethal than Mercury

As already stated, many other locations around the world are affected by mercury poisoning and contamination. For example, Canada and Japan have an extensive history of mercury poisoning, including neurologic symptoms and contaminated fish. These studies have has been documented since the 1950’s in these locations. In fact, the contamination became so problematic the Ontario health department formed a task force on organic mercury in 1972. Further, recent protesting throughout Toronto has asked for Canada to address the contamination of mercury. Findings revealed levels of mercury exceeding those of international standards and included the highest recorded mercury contamination among in the western part of the world. (CITE 6)

Certainly, the mercury is a vigorous neurotoxin and poisonous to the brain; however, toxicity depends on the dose. Supporters to mercury hypothesis claim that the thimerosal contains ethylmercury in dosages exceeding the limits that the Environmental Protection Agency allows. They argue that these dosages of mercury should be considered with the prenatal vaccines dosages and the environmental sources of mercury. Additionally, underweight and premature infants receive the same dosages as larger babies. Furthermore, they claim that some children may be unable to metabolize mercury, and possibly these are the children who get diagnosed with Autism. They support their claims with the journalist David Kirby’s book “Evidence of Harm” where he claims that the increase in 1990s childhood vaccine led to cumulate of thimerosal, which caused the increase in Autism rates (Kirby

In 2011, Dr. Jeremy L. Bria of DC made a claim that the flu shot did indeed increase your risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease. An advertisement was published in The Beacon with the title “Want to increase your risk of getting Alzheimer’s Disease?” which then went on to link Alzheimer’s with the flu shot because of the mercury that’s in it. Claiming “Flu shots contain 25 micrograms of mercury. And since the toxic level of mercury is one microgram, that’s 25 times the amount of toxicity your

Furthermore, germanium has physical dangers like the gas is heavier than air and may travel along the ground; distant ignition possible. Meanwhile, germanium is as heavy as metal, it is considered to have some negative impact in aquatic ecosystems. On the contrary, germanium is believed to have no toxic on plants or animals, but its scarcity might contribute to that belief. To summarize, germanium can be dangerous because of the oxygen in the air can travel along the ground.

An element on the Periodic Table called mercury was used in various ways, and this element proved to be both fatal, yet beneficial at the same time. According to an article, “The Mad Hatter Syndrome: mercury and biological toxicity”, by Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D., the author stated, “A mercury solution was commonly used during the process of turning fur into felt, which caused the hatters to breathe in the fumes of this highly toxic metal, a situation exacerbated by the poor ventilation in most of the workshops,” (Connealy). These hatters eventually developed a disease called mad hatter disease. If the people had known that mercury was a lethal element, they would have had safety regulations or substituted mercury with another safe element to make the hats. Also, according to the same article, French dentists in the late 1800s mixed mercury with silver to bond the amalgams at room temperature. These dentists had a lack of knowledge concerning the health effects of mercury inside a person. The mercury inside these patients’ mouths put them at an exceedingly high risk of mad hatter disease. This lack of knowledge caused society to be at high risk of spreading

Mercury, named after the Roman God of Thievery, Commerce, and Travel, is the first planet from the Sun. It is unique because it shows at both morning rise and evening set of the sun. It is rocky, heavily cratered, covered in boulders, and also pulverized dust. The majority of it's surface bears a strong resemblance to that of Earth's moon. It's lack of atmosphere causes wild temperature fluctuations. Temperatures can range from 90 kelvin to 700 kelvin thus creating a planet, from all observations, that cannot sustain life--it is geologically dead. Mercury also has a magnetic field generated by the planet's core that can deflect solar wind and which has a magnetosphere that changes. This was surprising for such a slow rotating planet--one that rotates completely every 88 Earth days.

The people with the most risk of damage by mercury are unborn fetuses and children. Studies seem to show that the metal