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I can't put my hands on the newspaper story I read recently, but it described a number of children becoming ill because they played with a rather large quantity of mercury they had found. I think the case was somewhere in Russia. The article will turn up as soon as I publish this I'm sure.
Where I live, Bethlehem, Pa., sometime in late spring a nursing home had to be evacuated while a mercury spill was cleaned up. Not too long before that, in the city next to us, Allentown, several children found mercury in an abandoned structure, a garage I believe, and played with it. Another clean-up job. These incidents are, I think, indicative of a serious multipart problem the average person is unaware of. One part of the problem, of course, is that mercury keeps escaping into the environment. Its widespread use in medicine apparently makes it difficult to keep track of. The fact that it turns up in uncontrolled jars may be proof that we have a legacy of unregulated mercury sitting about waiting to be discovered, often by children it seems, which is the second part of the problem. As I see it, beyond the fact that mercury keeps escaping into the environment, is something missing from public education? If children aren't being taught about the dangers of mercury, eating lead, and playing with or drinking household chemicals, something is wrong with the education system. Is this type of environmental health education being left to parents? Why? Who educated the parents? If you can teach a kid to look both ways when crossing a street and if you can teach a kid to stay away from household poisons, you can teach a kid about mercury. Go To Page: 1
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