Abstract
The alkyl compounds of mercury present a significant human health hazard. These compounds, which are readily absorbed through the respiratory or gastrointestinal routes and only slowly eliminated from the body, can cause serious damage to the central nervous system, and may lead to death or permanent major disability. Harmful exposure by inhalation has occurred in industrial and agricultural settings, where alkyl mercury compounds are used primarily as fungicides. Serious illness has also resulted from ingestion of both seed treated with alkyl mercury fungicides and of fish from contaminated waters. The latter form of poisoning may occur after the discharge of several forms of mercury into natural bodies of water, since aquatic microorganisms can convert inorganic mercury to alkyl mercury which then accumulates to dangerous concentrations in the higher rungs of biologic food chains. Although variation in exposure rates makes it difficult to set precise limits for safe environmental concentrations of these compounds, air levels of 0.01 mg/M 2 and food concentrations of 0.5 to 1.0 mg/kg of mercury as alkyl mercury have found fairly widespread acceptance as the current critical values. A concentration of 10 μg/100 ml of blood has been proposed as the maximum permissible for mercury (as alkyl mercury) in exposed persons. The possibility that exposure to very small doses, heretofore regarded as harmless, may have subtle and yet still significant chronic health effects in the adult and not so subtle effects in the human fetus requires exploration.
Published Version
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