Mercury toxicity was ( eating for exercise. ive become frustrated. Please help.)

[Guest guest]

On Mon, 11 Mar 2002 14:49:38 -0500 Idol <Idol@...>

writes:

Bianca-

>It would seem that that either the author of New York Times article is

>wrong or Sally is wrong. Could you post the link to the article your are

>referencing? Thanks.

Actually, I think it's even a little more complicated than that. From

what

I've read, there's always been a certain level of mercury in the oceans

and

in fish. The fish are able to handle those naturally-occurring mercury

compounds and bind them in such a way that they're harmless to both us

and

the fish. (I guess we excrete those compounds as fast as we eat

them?) However, mercury pollution from industry comes in different forms

which neither we nor the fish can handle, and it too can concentrate in

fish and thus reach us in high doses.

ME: ,

I probably should have quoted Sally in full, as she is making a

distinction between shoreline fish, " mercury contamination is a danger

when one eats fish from shoreline waters near industrial areas or from

contaminated freshwaters. " As opposed to deep sea fish, which have the

ability to bind and remove mercury from their bodies and aren't in

contaminated waters.

The problem is that nobody seems to be distinguishing between the

different

forms when discussing mercury levels in fish. Even though overall

mercury

levels have remained relatively constant, there are definitely areas

which

have been tremendously polluted by mercury, so we need to find out which

fish have safe, neutralized natural mercury compounds, and which are

polluted by industrial mercury compounds that are toxic to us and the

fish.

ME: See quote above

Bianca