MERCURY FEARS

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32493, 31 December 1970, Page 11

MERCURY FEARS

Big threat to humans seen (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) CHICAGO, Dec. 29. Mercury contamination, unheard of only a few years ago, is now the most dangerous environment pollutant, a biologist said in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr Darry Commoner, director of the Centre for the Biology of Natural Systems at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, said yesterday that mercury pollution might present a bigger threat to human life than radiation fall-out caused by nuclear bomb tests in the atmosphere.

Dr Commoner criticised the United States Food and Drug Administration for allegedly failing to recognise the mercury threat even after it received a confidential report in 1967 indicating that high levels of the metal were being found in fish caught in the Great Lakes. Earlier this month, the F.D.A. recalled various brands of tuna and shipments of swordfish which contained more than the safety level of 5 parts of mercury per million.

“Symptoms of mercury poisoning, which affect the brain and central nervous system, may begin to appear in people who eat food containing a mercury content of five to 10 parts per million,” Dr Commoner said. “As a result, the Federal minimum safety standard may | have to be lowered.”