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News- Page 12
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Mercury : Mercury, fetal damage linked
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Posted by Sylvia on Saturday, February 07, 2004 (19:16:26)
Boston.com 07/02/2004
By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON - Children whose mothers ate seafood high in mercury while pregnant can suffer irreparable brain damage, researchers reported yesterday.
The report was issued the same week in which the US Environmental Protection Agency doubled its estimate of how many newborns had unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.
The study, done by an international group led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, also indicated that fetuses exposed to mercury in the womb may suffer permanent damage to their heart function.
"We found that both prenatal and postnatal mercury exposure affects brain functions and that they seem to affect different targets in the brain," Philippe Grandjean, who led the study, said in a statement.
Grandjean and colleagues studied more than 1,000 mothers and children living on the Faroe Islands in Denmark. Residents there eat large amounts of fish, much of it contaminated with mercury.
The researchers measured mercury in umbilical cord blood taken from the children at birth and then in hair samples taken at ages 7 and 14.
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Mercury : Study Suggests Vaccine, Autism Link
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Posted by Sylvia on Saturday, February 07, 2004 (18:50:43)
Web MD Health 05/02/2004
By Salynn Boyles
Newly published studies might explain the controversial belief that exposure to the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal can cause childhood neurological disorders like autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Researchers say the findings offer some of the first scientific evidence linking early immunizations to these conditions, but vaccine advocates remain skeptical. They point out that human studies have failed to show a link between childhood vaccinations and the development of neurological problems.
"It would be irresponsible to ignore careful work by careful investigators, and hopefully this will stimulate more research," pediatrics professor Louis Z. Cooper, MD, of the National Network for Immunization Information, tells WebMD. "But there is a giant jump between these (test tube) studies and the complex clinical syndrome we know as autism."
Tenfold Increase
For more than a decade, anti-vaccine activists have charged that thimerosal in childhood vaccines is to blame for a dramatic worldwide rise in the diagnosis of autism. Cases have increased tenfold in the U.S. over the past three decades.
In an effort to ease parental fears, thimerosal was removed from most vaccines given in the U.S. about three years ago. It is too soon to know if the move has affected autism rates in this country. But a recent study from Denmark, which banned thimerosal more than a decade ago, showed no decline in cases.
"Nothing would please all of us more than to have a large reduction in the frequency of autism in children born and vaccinated after thimerosal was taken out of vaccines, but we have not seen that," Cooper says.
Molecular Evidence
In the new study, to be published in the April issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers examined the impact of exposure to a variety of substances that interrupt nerve developmental on a process critical to normal development, known as methylation.
"During the first years of life networks of neurons that represent the matrix for learning are being developed in the brain," says Northeastern University pharmacy professor Richard Deth, PhD, who led the research team. "Methylation and the development of neuronal cells to create these networks are critical during this time. If the process is interrupted, the ability to learn and pay attention would naturally be impaired."
Deth and colleagues suggest that exposure to thimerosal, even in doses as low as those contained in one vaccine, has the ability to disrupt methylation. The theory is that certain children are more at risk than others because they lack the normal ability to excrete metals like thimerosal in the urine.
Different Pathology
The researcher says he believes the dramatic rise in autism and ADHD cases over the last few decades can be blamed on mercury poisoning due to vaccine-related thimerosal exposure. He adds that the fact that autism rates have not declined following the banning of thimerosal is not proof of its safety.
"The epidemiological studies are looking at whole populations, and we are trying to determine what it is about an individual kid that might make him more susceptible to this exposure," he tells WebMD.
But Harvard University neurologist Margaret L. Bauman, MD, says the evidence just isn't there to show a link between mercury exposure and autism.
Last March, Bauman and colleague Karin Nelson, MD, published a review of the research. They noted that while mercury poisoning and autism both affect the central nervous system, the specific sites of brain involvement and the brain cell types affected are different in the two disorders. They further noted that mercury injures the nerves and other organs that are not affected in autism.
"The pathology that we see in the brains of people with mercury poisoning just is not consistent with the pathology we see in the autistic brain," Bauman tells WebMD. "It is a total mismatch."
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Mercury : Mercury-sniffing dog keeps schools safe
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Posted by Sylvia on Friday, February 06, 2004 (16:30:35)
Stillwater Gazette 05/02/2004
By Ellen P. Gabler
STILLWATER — He’s always getting his nose into trouble — and that’s a good thing.
Clancy, the only dog in North America trained to smell and detect mercury, is sniffing out trouble spots in schools throughout Washington County.
Clancy was recruited in 2003 as the Washington County Department of Public Health and Environment’s main investigator for its Mercury Free Zone program.
The program was designed to coordinate removal and replacement of dangerous mercury-containing items lurking in Washington County schools.
Mercury is a nerve toxin that was once used in many products commonly found in school science labs and nurse’s offices, including fever and laboratory thermometers, barometers and blood-pressure cuffs.
While the chemical’s dangerous effects have been known for years, Washington County Environmental Health program manager Jeff Travis said last week, many mercury-containing devices still clutter the shelves in local schools.
Funded through a partnership between Washington and Ramsey counties and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Mercury Free Zone program allows Clancy to scan schools for mercury-laden instruments, reducing the risk of potential mercury exposure to students and school staff.
Once Clancy’s nose finds its target, dangerous materials are removed and a crucial arm of the program — the Resource Recovery fund, which is supported jointly by Washington and Ramsey counties — pays for replacement equipment so students and staff have access to similar, yet safer, instruments and devices.
Travis calls the program “cheap insurance.†Mercury- spill cleanups range from $5,000 to $250,000, he said, not considering devastating health risks. On the average, he said, the program’s cost to eliminate mercury from a single school building is $309.
“It’s a good return on investment,†Travis said. “The whole goal is to get mercury out of the school building so it can’t be released and kids can’t be exposed to it. It is really just a good thing to do.â€
Since the program began in 2003, 53 pounds of mercury have already been removed from Washington County schools, Travis said.
All school districts in the county are participating in the program, Travis said, including 60 public and 23 private schools. Thirty-one schools have completed the process so far.
District 834 was very proactive, Travis said, and has already completed the process for each of its schools.
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Mercury : Exposure to vaccine additive 'may increase risk of autism'
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Posted by Sylvia on Friday, February 06, 2004 (15:55:42)
AWARES 05/02/2004
source Northeastern University, Health DayNews and CanWest News Service
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA: Exposure to certain neurodevelopmental toxins, including the mercury-based vaccine additive, thimerosal, may increase the risk of autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, says a study in the April 2004 issue of the journal, Molecular Psychiatry.
This research, which was rushed into print online on February 5 - two months ahead of its scheduled publication - is the first to offer a possible explanation for possible causes of these two increasingly common childhood disorders.
The researchers at Northeastern University in Boston, together with colleagues from Tufts University, also in Boston, from the University of Nebraska and from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, found that exposure to toxins such as ethanol and heavy metals (including lead, aluminum and the ethylmercury-containing preservative, thimerosal) interrupt growth factor signalling.
This adversely impacts methylation reactions such as the transfer of carbon atoms. Methylation is critical to proper neurological development in infants and children.
"Scientists certainly acknowledge that exposure to neurotoxins like ethanol and heavy metals can cause developmental disorders but, until now, the precise mechanisms underlying their toxicity have not been known," the researcher and pharmacy professor, Dr Richard Deth, of Northeastern University, says in a prepared statement. "The recent increase in the incidence of autism led us to speculate that environmental exposures, including vaccine additives, might contribute to the triggering of this disorder."
Starting in 2000, the United States and Europe largely phased out thimerosal, often used as a preservative in multi-dose units of vaccines for diseases such as hepatitis, whooping cough, tetanus and diptheria.
Now, most vaccines in the United States and Europe contain only trace amounts of thimerosal. However, multi-dose flu vaccines still contain thimerosal. The same is true of many larger, multi-dose vials of vaccines shipped to and used in developing countries.
Though some speculation exists regarding this link, Dr Deth and his colleagues found that exposure to toxins, such as ethanol and heavy metals (including lead, aluminium and thimerosal) potently interrupt growth factor signalling, causing adverse effects on methylation reactions (that is the transfer of carbon atoms).
Methylation, in turn, plays a significant role in regulating normal DNA function and gene expression and is critical to proper neurological development in infants and children. Scientists and practitioners have identified an increase in diagnoses of autism and ADHD in particular, though the reasons why are largely unknown.
In their work, the scientists found that insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and the neurotransmitter, dopamine, both stimulated folate-dependent methylation pathways in neuronal cells. At the same time, they noted that compounds like thimerosal, ethanol and metals (like lead and mercury) effectively inhibited these same biochemical pathways at concentrations which are typically found following vaccination or other sources of exposure.
By better understanding, what happens when infants and children are exposed to these materials, the work of Deth and his colleagues helps to explain how environmental contact with metals and administration of certain vaccines may lead to serious disorders which manifest themselves during childhood, including autism and ADHD.
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Mercury : Parents Upset Over Stoughton's Handling Of Mercury Spill
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Posted by Sylvia on Friday, February 06, 2004 (11:36:27)
FireHouse.com 04/02/2004
By Channel 3000
STOUGHTON, Wis. - Stoughton High School parents are upset the district did not inform them of the hazard until hours after it happened.
Superintendent Myron Palomba says no one knew about the spill that happened at 9 a.m., but administration responded immediately when they were informed about a second incident at 1:15 p.m.
Over the weekend, the school was cleaned and other forms of mercury that were discovered were removed from classrooms.
"We're going to take a look at how we can improve in the future if we get into situation in the future better communication to parents," Palomba said.
School officials told students to call their parents right away and found out some did not.
Urine tests results on 40 students are expected by the end of this week. Mercury is poisonous to humans and can affect nerve and brain function, including memory loss and hearing problems. Exposure to pregnant women can cause birth deformities.
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