A thought I had regarding mercury poisoning...

[Guest guest]

I was giving some thought to the argument regarding whether or not

the symptoms of mercury poisoning were similar to the symptoms of

autism.

What struck me is why I never hear anything about people being

diagnosed as mercury poisoned today. Think of the sources of

mercury in our environment: Vaccines, amalgams, food (fish), air

(coal burning plants) and there are probably some I'm missing.

There is much current debate about whether the Bush administration

is doing enough to curb the amount of mercury released into the

environment from coal burning power plants. I've heard reports that

numerous women of child bearing age had levels of mercury in their

blood that were considered to be dangerous for their future children.

Given all of these potential exposures, surely there must be

thousands of people in the United State alone that are suffering ill

effects due to mercury exposure. So how many people are diagnosed

with mercury poisoning each year that do NOT have some other

diagnosis such as autism, ADD or ADHD? I don't know the answer to

this question but would be extremely interested to find it. My

impression is that it must be extremely low because I have never

heard about it on the news and I pay close attention to anything

dealing with the subjects autism & mercury.

I can only think of a few reasons why the number of diagnosed cases

of mercury poisoning would be low.

1. Mercury exposure is not bad for you or as some in Denmark

believe it can even help prevent neurological disorders such as

autism (isn't that great comedy?).

2. The levels of mercury we have been exposed to are too low to

produce any noticeable side effects or symptoms.

Based on the EPA guidelines I have a very hard time believing this

argument. There must be lots of people with a mouthful of amalgams,

who were vaccinated during pregnancy, who eat a lot of fish, who

live near coal burning power plants and whose children were

vaccinated in the 90's.

3. Even though there are many cases of mercury poisoning in the US

our doctors fail to diagnose it correctly because there are other

diseases and disorders that match the symptoms that there patients

come in with. With the exception of a chemist who may be

accidentally exposed to mercury on the job, how many people

suffering from environmental mercury exposure would be savvy enough

to tell the doctor the true cause of their symptoms? My guess is

nearly zero. So it would be up to the doctors to provide an

accurate diagnosis. If there are any doctors in the audience, is

mercury poisoning a common diagnosis that might be assigned to a

patient?