Physical and Mental Development of Children with Prenatal Exposure to Mercury from Fish. Stage 1: Preliminary Tests at Age 4

The Paper:

T. Kjellstrom, S. Kennedy, S. Wallis, and C. Mantell. National Swedish Environmental Protection Board. Report No.: Report #3080. National Swedish Environmental Protection Board. Report 3080, Solna, Sweden. 96 pp. 1986.

The Purpose of this Study:
To learn if pregnant women on the North Island of New Zealand who eat locally caught ocean fish harm their unborn children because of the methylmercury in the ocean fishes their mothers eat.

Some Background, Methods, Results, Caveats, and Other Select Points:

• This is not a peer-reviewed, scientific paper.
• This report was first publicly distributed in 1986.
• These scientists looked at possible bad effects of methylmercury in the physical development and in the mental neurobehavioral development in 38 children on the North Island of New Zealand.
• Of some 11,000 children born there in 1978, a group of 73 children was identified with elevated methylmercury exposure in the womb. Their mothers ate a lot of fish. These women also had high mercury levels in their hair.
• Thirty-eight of these children and a matched reference group were examined at age four with the Denver Developmental Screening Test and neurological screening test.
• When these scientists examined certain outside influences on these children, the scientists believed the study results were not affected. These scientists conclude that the most likely cause for the differences found in these few children was the different amounts of fish their mothers ate while pregnant.

A Bottom Line:
The mothers (with high levels of mercury in their hair) of these few North Island, New Zealand children studied some 23 years ago gave birth to these 38 children who have detectable bad effects from methylmercury Additional testing of these 38 children indicated more bad effects among the high methylmercury children.

Find This Paper for Your Review:
Physical and Mental Development of Children with Prenatal Exposure to Mercury from Fish. Stage 1: Preliminary Tests at Age 4. National Swedish Environmental Protection Board. Report 3080, Solna, Sweden. 1986.

To get your own copy of this paper, you must send for a hard copy to:
The National Swedish Environmental Protection Board’s Information Section
Box 1302 S-171 25
Solna, Sweden