Mercury

“At its fourth session, held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, from 27 June to 2 July 2012, the intergovernmental negotiating committee to prepare a global legally binding instrument on mercury requested the Chair of the committee to prepare, for consideration by the Committee at its fifth session, a Chair’s draft of the global legally binding instrument on mercury called for by the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme in its decision 25/5. In his draft the Chair would propose compromise text in an effort to bridge the differences between some of the positions espoused by the parties during the fourth session. He would also seek to harmonize style and terminology and achieve editorial consistency in the draft instrument.”

“Background: Recent studies have suggested that several genes that mediate mercury metabolism are polymorphic in humans.

Objective: We hypothesized that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in metallothionein (MT) genes may underlie interindividual differences in mercury biomarker levels. We studied the potential modifying effects of MT SNPs on mercury exposure–biomarker relationships.

Methods: We measured total mercury in urine and hair samples of 515 dental professionals. We also surveyed occupational and personal exposures to dental amalgam and dietary fish consumption, from which daily methylmercury (MeHg) intake was estimated. Log-transformed urine and hair levels were modeled in multivariable linear regression separately against respective exposure surrogates, and the effect modification of 13 MT SNPs on exposure was investigated.

Results: The mean mercury levels in urine (1.06 μg/L) and hair (0.51 μg/g) were not significantly different from the U.S. general population (0.95 μg/L and 0.47 μg/g, respectively). The mean estimated daily MeHg intake was 0.084 μg/kg/day (range, 0–0.98 μg/kg/day), with 25% of study population intakes exceeding the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reference dose of 0.1 μg/kg/day. Multivariate regression analysis showed that subjects with the MT1M (rs2270837) AA genotype (n = 10) or the MT2A (rs10636) CC genotype (n = 42) had lower urinary mercury levels than did those with the MT1M or MT2A GG genotype (n = 329 and 251, respectively) after controlling for exposure and potential confounders. After controlling for MeHg intake, subjects with MT1A (rs8052394) GA and GG genotypes (n = 24) or the MT1M (rs9936741) TT genotype (n = 459) had lower hair mercury levels than did subjects with MT1A AA (n = 113) or MT1M TC and CC genotypes (n = 15), respectively.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that some MT genetic polymorphisms may influence mercury biomarker concentrations at levels of exposure relevant to the general population.”

“Dental amalgams are a commonly used dental restorative material. Amalgams are about 50% mercury (Hg), and Hg is known to significantly accumulate in the kidney. It was hypothesized that because Hg accumulates in the proximal tubules (PTs), glutathione-S-transferases (GST)-α (suggestive of kidney damage at the level of PT) would be expected to be more related to Hg exposure than GST-π (suggestive of kidney damage at the level of the distal tubules). Urinary biomarkers of kidney integrity were examined in children of 8-18 years old, with and without dental amalgam fillings, from a completed clinical trial (parent study). Our study determined whether there was a significant dose-dependent correlation between increasing Hg exposure from dental amalgams and GST-α and GST-π as biomarkers of kidney integrity. Overall, the present study, using a different and more sensitive statistical model than the parent study, revealed a statistically significant dose-dependent correlation between cumulative exposure to Hg from dental amalgams and urinary levels of GST-α, after covariate adjustment; where as, a nonsignificant relationship was observed with urinary levels of GSTπ-. Furthermore, it was observed that urinary GST-α levels increased by about 10% over the 8-year course of the study among individuals with an average exposure to amalgams among the study subjects from the amalgam group, in comparison with study subjects with no exposure to dental amalgams. The results of our study suggest that dental amalgams contribute to ongoing kidney damage at the level of the PTs in a dose-dependent fashion.”

“Mercury amalgam dental fillings have been used for over one hundred and fifty years in hundreds of millions of patients around the world. In the past two decades, scientific evidence has shown that mercury fillings have harmful effects on human health. Still, the American Dental Association maintains the position that mercury fillings are safe and should continue to be used without warning requirements. Although the Occupational Safety and Health Administration promulgated regulations to protect dentists and other dental workers from mercury exposure, the Food and Drug Administration has yet to provide similar protections to dental patients. Additionally, because Medicaid does not cover alternative fillings, many low-income Americans are forced to choose between mercury fillings or no fillings at all. Although other countries have banned or severely restricted the use of mercury fillings, the United States has yet to enact federal legislation on the issue. This Note argues that Congress should ban mercury fillings or, at a minimum, implement uniform warning requirements and mandate insurance and Medicaid coverage for alternative fillings.”

“Results obtain on the present study showed that thiomerosal, H1N1 antigen and H1N1 vaccine were caused significant decrease in norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA) contents of hypothalamus, striatum and cerebral cortex. The alternation in NE and DA was associated with significant increase in oxidative markers namely lipid peroxidation and nitric oxide, oxidation induction was extent to cause significant decrease in glutathione level. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that H1N1 vaccine as a whole and/or its ingredient caused oxidative stress and monoamines alternations in brain of mice. The present observation could be due to the presence of thiomerosal.”

“Methods: A hypothesis generating cohort study was undertaken to evaluate the relationship between exposure to organic-Hg from a Thimerosal-containing Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular-Pertussis (DTaP) vaccine in comparison to a Thimerosal-free DTaP vaccine administered, from 1998 through 2000, for the risk of ASD as reported in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database (phase I). A hypothesis testing case–control study was undertaken to evaluate the relationship between organic-Hg exposure from Thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccines administered at specific intervals in the first six months of life among cases diagnosed with an ASD and controls born between 1991 through 1999 in the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database (phase II).

Results: In phase I, it was observed that there was a significantly increased risk ratio for the incidence of ASD reported following the Thimerosal-containing DTaP vaccine in comparison to the Thimerosal-free DTaP vaccine. In phase II, it was observed that cases diagnosed with an ASD were significantly more likely than controls to receive increased organic-Hg from Thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine administered within the first, second, and sixth month of life.

Conclusions: Routine childhood vaccination is an important public health tool to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with infectious diseases, but the present study provides new epidemiological evidence supporting an association between increasing organic-Hg exposure from Thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines and the subsequent risk of an ASD diagnosis.”

“Toxic metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury are ubiquitous, have no beneficial role in human homeostasis, and contribute to noncommunicable chronic diseases. While novel drug targets for chronic disease are eagerly sought, potentially helpful agents that aid in detoxification of toxic elements, chelators, have largely been restricted to overt acute poisoning. Chelation, that is multiple coordination bonds between organic molecules and metals, is very common in the body and at the heart of enzymes with a metal cofactor such as copper or zinc. Peptides glutathione and metallothionein chelate both essential and toxic elements as they are sequestered, transported, and excreted. Enhancing natural chelation detoxification pathways, as well as use of pharmaceutical chelators against heavy metals are reviewed. Historical adverse outcomes with chelators, lessons learned in the art of using them, and successes using chelation to ameliorate renal, cardiovascular, and neurological conditions highlight the need for renewed attention to simple, safe, inexpensive interventions that offer potential to stem the tide of debilitating, expensive chronic disease.”

“Dental amalgam, sometimes referred to as ‘silver filling,’ is a silver-colored material used to fill (restore) teeth that have cavities. Dental amalgam is made of two nearly equal parts: liquid mercury and a powder containing silver, tin, copper, zinc and other metals.  Amalgam is one of the most commonly used tooth fillings, and is considered to be a safe, sound, and effective treatment for tooth decay.”

The report provides the most recent information available on worldwide atmospheric mercury emissions, releases to the aquatic environment, and the transport and fate of mercury in the global environment. The report emphasizes emissions to air from human (anthropogenic) activities, but includes releases to water because the aquatic environment is the main route of exposure to humans and wildlife. It is in aquatic systems that the inorganic mercury is transformed into the more toxic form, methylmercury, which can accumulate in fish and marine mammals consumed by humans.

“The Parties to this Convention,
Recognizing that mercury is a chemical of global concern owing to its long-range atmospheric transport, its persistence in the environment once anthropogenically introduced, its ability to bioaccumulate in ecosystems and its significant negative effects on human health and the environment,
Recalling decision 25/5 of 20 February 2009 of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme to initiate international action to manage mercury in an efficient, effective and coherent manner…”