Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals; Section on Mercury

The Report:

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), July 2005 http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/3rd/pdf/thirdreport.pdf

The Purpose of this Report:
This is yet another installment that reports an ongoing assessment of the U.S. population's exposure to environmental chemicals by measuring the chemicals or their metabolites in human specimens including blood or urine. This report presents exposure data for the U.S. population for 148 environmental chemicals from 2001 to 2002.

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

• This report is not a peer-reviewed, scientific paper. It was first publicly distributed in 2005.
• CDC’s Environmental Health Laboratory measured chemicals or their metabolites in blood and urine samples from a random sample of people from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). From the results collected, CDC estimated the exposure for the U.S. civilian population to 148 chemicals — including mercury.
• CDC used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to analyze the amount of mercury in the blood of more than 3,600 women of childbearing age for this report’s mercury data collection.
• This report is intended to document the extent that the U.S. population is exposed to various chemicals. The report findings do not demonstrate cause and effect.
• Numbers for 1999-2002 show that all women of childbearing age had mercury levels below the EPA methylmercury benchmark dose lower level (BMDL). This level of methylmercury exposure is believed to be the lowest amount of methylmercury exposure at which bad effects can happen.
• Of the women of childbearing age analyzed for this third report, 5.7% had mercury blood levels within a factor of 10 of those mercury levels associated with bad effects on developing human brains and/or nervous systems. This is a decline from about 8% of women who had these mercury levels in 1999.

A Bottom Line:

• This federal government report states that most of the mercury in the blood of the U.S. population comes from eating fish and shellfish.
• Blood mercury levels in both the samples from 1999-2000 and also from 2001-2001 are below mercury levels believed to cause bad effects in people.
• This report states that finding any measurable amounts of mercury in human blood or urine does not mean that this mercury level causes any bad health effects in people.

Find This Report for Your Review:
Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals; Section on Mercury.
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/3rd/pdf/thirdreport.pdf