Re: Boy undergoing tests after finding mercury

[Guest guest]

This is amazingly deplorable. One would think, that by now, most people would know that mercury is a neurotoxin and a hazardous material to handle. It seems, however, that the opposite may be true. Next year, I will be teaching older students and I will make an effort to include discussion of mercury and vaccine ingredients in our classroom discussions and/or research (even if it is not on our curriculum), as middle school is the time when students are faced with some of the newer, more dubious vaccines, some of which still contain mercury. Many schools offer various safety programs, but I do not recall hearing of any that warn kids about the hazards of mercury. Perhaps, it is time kids are also made more aware of dangers of various chemicals (pesticides included), just as they are of smoking, alcohol, and various other drugs, and other safety issues, like bike, traffic, and elevator safety (hell, we used to get info about safety around

hydroelectric dams, even though the probability of any of our students getting close to one was very unlikely). It is strange that we have heard of students getting access to rather large amounts of mercury recently. What was that grandmother doing with all of that mercury stored in her garage? I still recall the news about the undertaker, somewhere in the southern states (I think it was), who was disposing of bodies in the woods, rather than looking after them properly. He, himself, may have been a victim of the mercury-laden air around his place of work, if his funeral home/crematorium did not have proper pollution/ventilation controls in place. Dealing with mercury is an important safety issue, especially as our governments are trying to bring in the energy-saving mercury-containing bulbs, while trying to outlaw the ambient-lovely incandescent bulbs, without giving the rest of us much, if any info on how to deal with

the broken bulbs. Will stop for now, Aasa (P.S., , nice to see you here again!!!!) autismlink wrote: Boy undergoing tests after finding mercury19 others had contact with the toxic chemical the youth found in agarage in CluteA 12-year-old boy who found a jar of liquid mercury in hisgrandmother's garage is now undergoing testing for mercury poisoning,along with 19

other people in the Clute neighborhood who were exposedto the toxic chemical.Police say it was nearly two weeks ago when the boy, who was visitinghis grandmother from out of town, found a mayonnaise jar, circa 1960,half-full of mercury. Along with a pill bottle he found, alsohalf-full of the molten silvery element, it totaled four to six poundsof mercury."He thought the consistency was pretty cool," said Clute Police Chiefand Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Wicker. "He snuck it intohis room and played with it on the floor."The boy scooped up the shiny blobs and brought them to a neighbor'shouse to show off. The neighbor kids played with the mercury some moreand then brought it to show to friends at a third house, where anadult realized what they were doing and sent them away, Wicker said.By the time police learned about it, there was almost no mercury leftin the jar or the bottle. "We think

most of it spilled outside,"Wicker said.Haz-mat teams recovered two pounds of mercury from the soil in frontof the 12-year-old's grandmother's house, he said.Now 20 people are awaiting the results of urine testing for mercurypoisoning, Wicker said, although no one has showed symptoms of acutepoisoning. Health officials are most concerned, he said, for someyoung girls who played with the beads, since mercury can lead to birthdefects in high levels.All three homes have been evacuated, and health officials have foundsignificantly high levels of mercury in the air where the boy firstplayed with the substance, spilling some into the carpet.The other two homes have shown slightly elevated levels of mercury inthe air, he said, but will be safe to occupy after a thoroughcleaning. Meanwhile, the occupants are living in motels and

withrelatives.