Talk:Mercury poisoning
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[edit] Coherency in this article
This article needs to be reworked to make it a bit more coherent, as some things are mentioned multiple times in different places. Agateller 00:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Elemental Mercury
The first paragraph goes directly into Elemental Mercury toxicity which is NOT the most common source of mercury poisoning. That section should be moved down to a more relevant sub-section. arfon 08:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Homeopathic option?
That paragraph seems a tad speculative. Rōnin 05:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
- I inserted the paragraph on homeopathy noticing that there was previously no information on treatment of mercury poisoning on the page. Of course chelation therapy must go there, and I'm very happy to see that it is there now. I just don't quite see why the homeopathy information was removed entirely? There was a caveat in the paragraph on the disputed validity of homeopathy as a mode of healing, along with the link to homeopathy so the reader could then go to the page on homeopathy and read up on it, just as there is now a link to chelation therapy. I think there's little chance that a wikipedia reader who is facing the need to flush mercury from his/her body will decide what to do without researching all therapies thoroughly. So, what is the harm in letting a reader know the information available from a mode of healing that IS used by many, though not by the American Medical Association? As long as there's a caveat explaining that chelation is the officailly approved form of therapy, but that there are other ways that do not have harmful side effects that people use to heal this very serious problem, why would it be necessary to remove the information completely? Iris Anthe 22:00, 14 May 2006
Homeopathic treatments often have no scientific evidence backing it up and often cause more harm by delaying "proven" treatments.
[edit] Effects in Humans - Vaccinations Containing Thimerosal
As per the Wikipedia.org entry for Thimerosal, most vaccines in the United States no longer contain this preservative. The article should either note this fact with a reference or modify the statement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimerosal
[edit] Thimerosal edit
User D-truth made the following edit, replacing the claim that most US vaccines now contain no Thimerosal:
Even knowing these risks vaccine manufacturers continue to add the mercury preservative thimerosal to the vaccines used to protect preschool children against infectious diseases. For example the MMR vaccine is almost always contains thimerosal. Parents are left with the choice either to administer the vaccine and take the batch number and hope that no reaction occurs, or not to administer the vaccine and deal with those consequences. In some states the MMR(Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine can be split into three separate vaccines, thereby eliminating the thimerosal.
Since the original claim was referenced, and the new edit was not sourced, I reverted the page and moved the edit here. Bobo12345 05:56, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Touch it?
Can you touch normal mercury and not suffer any damage? I've always wanted to touch it to see how it feels but I've stayed many meters away from any exposed mercury due to fears of toxicity.--Energman 18:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Mad as a hatter
Moved this contribution from an anonymous editor to the Talk page. Is it relevant? Can you find cite source?
- "There is, however, some controversy. A Web page on urban legends maintains that "mad as an atter" actually meant 'venomous as a viper'. It quotes a 1901 book called Edwards's Words, Facts, and Phrases which states that the word "mad" meant 'violent or venomous' in Anglo-Saxon, and that "atter" is a variant of "adder," a type of viper, so that mad as a hatter meant 'venomous as a viper'. Actually, "atter" meant 'poison', not 'viper', in Old English, and the original sense of mad was 'unreasoning, foolish, insane'."
Bobo12345 06:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Dental fillings
Cut from "poisoning" section:
- Another source of exposure to mercury may be dental fillings. In their policy paper written in 2005, "Mercury in Health Care", The World Health Organization confirmed that "mercury contained in dental amalgam is the greatest source of mercury vapour in non-industrialized settings, exposing the concerned population to mercury levels significantly exceeding those set for food and for air".[1] WHO states, however, that total mercury exposure from amalgams (<5 micrograms/day) is roughly 3% of the "tolerable" dose (140 micrograms/day) for a 70 kg (155 pound) person.[2] The possible adverse health effects of dental amalgams containing mercury is an ongoing scientific controversy, with strongly held views on all sides. There has been no definitive proof of either position.
We should stick to the science. If there's no proof of the position, then it's not an "occurence of poisoning".
I'm thinking of a spin-off article on the campaign to ban mercury or "efforts to ban mercury". Maybe it should be called mercury controversy.
Anyway, we need an article on the pros and cons of using mercury in dental fillings and thermometers. No one wants 32 years of massive dumping in a Japanese harbor, but that was an extreme case. --Uncle Ed 02:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Current Picture
I think the current picture of Mercury should be changed as we should endeavor to use pictures without filters. The current one makes the uninformed believe that Mercury is greenish in color rather than silver. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.128.225.175 (talk) 05:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC).
- Seconded. Unfortunately, that greenish picture was the only public domain image I could find at the time. Anyone is more than welcome to replace it with a better version, as long as it's GFDL compatible. Bobo12345 06:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
