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Children's health and mercury exposure
Author(s) -
RONCHETTI ROBERTO,
ZUURBIER MONIEK,
JESENAK MILOS,
KOPPE JANNA G.,
AHMED UBAH FARAH,
CECCATELLI SANDRA,
VILLA MARIA PIA
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1080/08035250600886157
Subject(s) - methylmercury , mercury (programming language) , bioaccumulation , fish consumption , reference dose , toxicology , environmental health , medicine , mercury exposure , population , fish <actinopterygii> , environmental chemistry , environmental science , fishery , biology , risk assessment , biomonitoring , chemistry , computer security , computer science , programming language
The reason why mercury is dangerous is that once released into the environment it cannot be removed and is rapidly transformed by microorganisms into organic compounds that tend to bioaccumulate and biomagnify in animals. The principal organic compound is methylmercury (MeHg). The primary route of exposure to MeHg for humans is consumption of fish. The safe dose (reference dose, RfD) of MeHg that can be consumed without neurotoxicological consequences is 0.1 µg per kg b.w./day. According to available data, the whole population of certain European countries or people who consume large quantities of fish are exposed to doses of MeHg that exceed the RfD. Given this level of mercury exposure, in order to avoid or reduce the expected neurotoxic consequences on foetuses we propose the following strategy:1) At present the most reasonable solution for pregnant women (and small children) is to reduce substantially or completely avoid fish intake. 2) In the medium term the European Community should evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of breeding uncontaminated fish in order to reduce the drawbacks of banning fish consumption. 3) In the long term there is no alternative to substantially reducing mercury emissions worldwide.