Study finds high mercury levels

WASHINGTON – One-fifth of women of childbearing age have mercury levels in their hair that exceed federal health standards, according to interim results of a nationwide survey being conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

The study, which was commissioned by the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, offers the latest evidence of how much mercury Americans are absorbing by eating fish. Coal-fired power plants and other sources release mercury into the air, which ends up in water and is absorbed by fish. The pollutant, which is a neurotoxin that can cause developmental problems in fetuses and young children, then makes its way into the human bloodstream when people eat the contaminated fish.

Researchers at UNC’s Environmental Quality Institute based their findings on hair samples from nearly 1,500 people, many of whom learned of the study through the Internet. Participants either paid $25 to submit hair samples with a home testing kit or got free tests at 27 hair salons across the country sponsored by Greenpeace, Aveda salons and state and local environmental groups.

Study participants were not randomly chosen, but the report’s author, Richard Maas, said they were evenly distributed geographically and he believes the results reflect overall mercury contamination levels among Americans. He said the tests showed a correlation between how much fish people ate and their mercury levels: One-third of people who ate canned tuna four or more times a week, for example, had mercury levels above Environmental Protection Agency recommendations.

“There is no other pollutant out there that has anywhere near this high a percentage of the U.S. population with exposure levels above the government’s health advisory levels,” said Maas, co-director of UNC’s Environmental Quality Institute. “Not lead, not arsenic, nothing.”

The last major national study of Americans’ mercury exposure, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 1999 and 2000, concluded that about 12 percent of women of childbearing age had mercury levels that exceeded EPA’s safety standard.

The UNC researchers said they could not explain why their subjects had higher mercury levels, since 80 percent of study participants said they had no reason to think they had a high concentration of mercury in their blood. Men and women in the study had similar mercury levels.

Greenpeace officials said the survey, which will draw on at least 5,000 hair samples when it is completed in March, will be used to lobby for stricter curbs on mercury pollution from power plants. EPA is drafting rules that officials predict will cut power plant emissions by 70 percent sometime after 2018.

Greenpeace energy campaigner Casey Harrell said Bush’s proposal is weak, and the government should require plants to reduce mercury pollution by 90 percent “as soon as possible.”

“People should not have to stop eating fish because they’re afraid they’ll get poisoned by mercury,” Harrell said.

EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman and Frank Maisano, a utilities lobbyist, said the administration’s proposal would address the problem of mercury pollution.

“We are addressing this shared concern on all fronts – making sure consumers, particularly pregnant women, or women who may become pregnant, have clear guidance about the benefits and risks of fish consumption – as well as attacking the problem at its source – regulating mercury emissions from power plants for the very first time,” said Bergman, who called the Greenpeace study helpful. “Mercury is a serious health risk.”