Lead, Mercury and Other Environmental Causes of Neurodegenerative Disease, as well as cardiovascular, autoimmune, hormonal and organ diseases — How To Decrease Exposure and Clear These Toxins From Your Body

Paul Reller, L.Ac.

Many patients with a neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson's, Alzheimers, etc. are told that understanding the causes of their health problem is complex and difficult to pinpoint, but that probably environmental contaminants such as lead and mercury have played a significant role. The patient would like to understand where this lead and mercury comes from in their experience, and how to eliminate it. Often, ill-informed and misleading information is presented, implying that these neurologically damaging toxic contaminants are primarily coming from your tap water, eating fish, etc., and not revealing the actual sources of organic mercury, lead and other heavy metals in your environment. Of course, tuna and tapwater are sources, but eliminating these from your diet will not stop this problem, as these toxic heavy metal compounds are now in our air, entering our food, and accumulating in our bodies. The important issues are stopping the pollution and clearing heavy metal toxins from the body. Understanding the complete picture of these environmental issues will help your to take appropriate actions to protect yourself and your children's children from neurodegenerative diseases. Heavy metal toxicity from organic lead and mercury compounds also contributes heavily to cardiovascular disease, immune and endocrine dysfunctions, pancreatic beta cell damage, chronic kidney disease, and other organ disorders. Stopping this form of pollution will not only reduce a variety of devastating diseases, but will drastically reduce future health care spending, and help to solve the federal deficit, and keep medicare solvent. This article will first present the facts of lead and mercury pollution and the health hazards, and then present some therapeutic ways that you can build an effective and complete protocol to both relieve symptoms and perhaps reduce the toxicity in your bodies. Understanding the problem is the first step in solving it, not only for yourself, but for your children, parents, neighbors, and all of the good people suffering from these diseases and disorders.

How much of a concern is organic mercury toxicity in the environment? In 2009, more than 140 countries agreed to negotiate a legally binding treaty aimed at slashing the use and creation of mercury in industry with the goal of finally reducing the enormous public exposure to a toxin that hampers childhood brain development, contributes heavily to neurodegenerative diseases, and is associated with a wide variety of chronic disorders, including autoimmune dysfunctions, cancer, asthma and diabetes. The United Nations stated that this treaty should be ready to sign by 2013. Like the Kyoto Protocol, support from the United States, which means public support, is vital to such a treaty. Where does the overwhelming majority of mercury toxicity come from? Dirty coal-fired power plants, smelters, chloralkili production of chlorine, manufacture of Portland Cement, mining, and natural gas drilling with fracturing of the shale and rock layers deep in the earth are the areas of concern. All of these industries could easily adopt safer practices that would significantly reduce organic mercury toxicity in the environment. Why don’t these industrial executives adopt these important practices? These lucrative industries make enormous profits and can afford to adopt new technologies. The stubborn and neurotic insistence on devastating harm appears to be perpetuated for no other reason than the fact that the individuals who run these industries can get away with it (and their families and friends do not criticize them). The amount of money spent already on lobbying against such regulation would pay for most of the costs of changing these harmful industrial practices that pour an unbelievable amount of organic mercury into our environment and hurt our children and our aging population. While our press is manipulated into diverting the public attention to mercury preservatives on pills, inert mercury tooth fillings, etc., the actual source of this extremely harmful toxin is largely ignored.

Patients should not assume that they are unaffected by heavy metal toxicity if they do not have Parkinson's or Alzheimer's diseases. We now know that a wide variety of common health problems are due to neurodegeneration, including attention deficit disorders, glaucoma, etc. This subject is explored more fully on another article on this website. Besides neurodegeneration, these toxicities also present much damage to the healthy functionality of the immune and endocrine systems, liver and kidney function, and contribute to cardiovascular and respiratory pathologies. Recent research is showing how various heavy metal toxins cause or contribute to diabetes and pancreatic beta cell destruction or dysfunction. Both organic methylmercury and inorganic arsenic and mercury (mercury chloride) are shown to cause pancreatic beta cell death in animal studies via neurosignaling and immunosignaling dysfunctions, and via oxidative stress. The time to become concerned is not after you are diagnosed with Parkinson's, but now. The bulk of this article explains the environmental sources and toxicities of these heavy metals in the environment, and if you want to go directly to therapeutic suggestions, these are found toward the end of the article.

Heavy metals are very prevalent in our environment naturally. The difference between these natural metals in our food, water and even herbs, and the metals produced by our industrial processes is one of absorption, accumulation and cellular effects. Metal particles in nature are generally inorganic, meaning that they are not combined with a carbon atom, and thus they do not combine easily with our own cells, which are carbon-based. Since these forms of inorganic heavy metals have been in our environment forever, human physiology has evolved ways to handle these naturally occurring heavy metals in normal concentration. They are usually excreted from our bodies without harm. In fact, most of these heavy metals found naturally in our environment are important for our healthy function in one way or another, in trace amounts. Lead is the exception to this rule. On the other hand, industrial heavy metal pollution often creates organic forms of these metal molecules that are completely absorbed by the lung and gastrointestinal tract, easily combine with common amino acids, such as cysteine and methionine, and bioaccumulate in our tissues. Over time, these highly electromagnetically charged molecules cause tissue electrolyte imbalances and predominantly affect the neurological function. These industrial processes also create inorganic heavy metal molecules that are not natural to our bodies, and may cause dysfunction.

Smelters and battery plants are the most significant source of inorganic lead pollutants, but our biggest health threat is the organic lead, mercury and other metal pollutants that are created predominantly in dirty coal technology in our power plants from the burning of carbon based fossil fuels. The implementation of rules that require effective cleaning or scrubbing of the enormous amount of smokestack pollution from coal-fired power plants has been delayed for over 30 years due to lobbying, with the Bush administration immediately overturning EPA suits that took over a decade to develop and win, and then instituting rules that were purposefully unenforceable. Luckily, in 2010, the Obama administration is enforcing new rules that will finally force the industry to develop and install effective scrubbers and cleaners (see the NY Times article below in additional info). In 2012, as the first set of elaborate coal-fired power plant scrubbers came on line due to the new mercury and lead regulations instituted by the Obama administration, saving tens of thousands of lives directly each year, and preventing hundreds of thousands of serious health problems, the response in the press was one of complaint, not a cheer or sigh of relief. Since the Bush administration passed laws preventing the implementation of these requirements to clean power plant emissions by an unclear requirement that they do not impact the economic viability or adversely affect the supply of power in an electrical grid, many companies have delayed adherence to the law and installation of the clean coal technology, despite decades of studies that prove that these energy companies have plenty of profits to pay for public protection. Reports of the first of these desperately needed emission scrubbers dwelt on the unfairness concerning many of the companies delaying the expense, and blame put unfairly on the Obama administration. There was little public outcry over delays in installing clean coal scrubbers.

Sources of organic mercury, or methylmercury, pollution

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) estimates that over 70 percent of the mercury contamination comes from coal-fired electric power plants, waste incineration, chloralkali production (chlorine and sodium hydroxide manufacture), and other industrial acitivities that introduce aerosolized methyl mercury into our air. The cement industry is a significant contributor to mercury air pollution as well, with EPA estimation of manufacture of Portland Cement being the third biggest source of mercury air pollution in the U.S. Many of these industrial mercury pollutants could be greatly reduced by the adoption of slightly more expensive manufacturing techniques, as well as effective scrubbers of smokestack wastes, and clean coal technology. For example, there are two types of chloralkali production, and the mercury cell method produces a great amount of mercury air pollution, while the diaphragm cell method does not. The Portland cement method is the most widely used method due to the cheap availability of raw ingredients, but the environmental impact of this manufacture affects not only mercury air pollution levels, but pollution of waterways as well. Alternatives to the grossly polluting high-energy Portland cement method now produce strong reliable cements at lower temperature and much less pollution, especially regarding mercury air pollution. The calcium sulfoaluminate cements are a low-energy alternative to Portland cement that was developed in China, and used extensively there now. The lower energy requirements in kiln production also reduce greenhouse gases considerably. A variety of cements are now available, but some come with higher cost and more variability in properties, requiring testing. With governmental enforcement of clean air and water standards, though, the most polluting manufacturing methods will become impractical and costly compared to safer and cleaner manufacturing methods. Finally, in 2010, the EPA, under the Obama administration, is enforcing mercury emission limits on the coal and cement industry. While these standards may increase costs a little for electricity and cement, the savings in health care costs and environmental clean up, coupled with the need to reduce greenhouse gases to comply with international rules, make these environmental enforcements cost effective for the public and the federal government.

These aerosolized mercury molecules readily enter our lungs and bloodstream, and contaminate our soils and waters. By far the largest source of these airborne organic mercury toxins are dirty coal-fired electric power plants. Both energy industry greed and misguided environmental activism have contributed to a failure to resolve this threat to public health. Opposition to coal and failure to adopt pragmatic attitudes and solutions has delayed implementation of cleaner coal technology, and industry lobbying and payments to public officials, as well as legal delay and manipulation, have also delayed implementation of new and cleaner technology in the coal based energy industry. Nowhere do we see this failure more than in the United States. Coal will be a significant source of power generation even as we adopt clean energy production in the future, and we must insist that our country adopts cleaner coal technology now. We have been told that mercury contamination is largely from eating fish, but this is only because the environmental mercury from the air lands in the waters, and subsequently in the water plants, and then in the fish that eat these plants. High levels of methyl mercury are found in predatory ocean fish, predominantly tuna and shark, and sometimes in larger varieties of fresh water predatory fish such as walleye and large mouthed bass, because these fish consume other contaminated fish, and these organic mercury toxins accumulate in tissues. The root source of this organic mercury toxin in the environment, even in the fish, is predominantly from dirty, outdated coal fired electric power plants that go unregulated and fail to utilize the latest technology to clean smokestack emissions.

The real source of mercury contamination is thus ubiquitous, and found in our immediate environment, not just canned tuna, especially if you live or work near these poorly regulated coal-fired plants or other industrial facilities. CNN investigative reporting revealed that children living in close proximity to smelting plants in Chile have been found to have an extremely high rate of toxic levels of lead and mercury in their tissues, resulting in neurodegenerative and developmental problems in up to 90% of the population. These children, and their parents, are not eating tuna and swordfish. The potential risk from heavy metals in your environment that are in an aerosolized or gaseous state are greater than the risk of these metals in a solid state. This is because the gaseous or aerosolized forms may enter the blood stream, tissues and cells much easier than the solid forms. The EPA did succeed in removing lead from gasoline to reduce injury to the population, but has been thwarted in applying the industry adoption of advanced air scrubbers and changed technology to the most offensive sources of the pollution. While EPA policy did reduce acid rain from sulfur contamination in smokestack emissions over 30 years ago, currently, we are not progressing in applying new technology to protect our children from neurodegenerative and immunodegenerative problems from organic aerosolized lead and mercury contamination today.

Today, the Department of Energy posts a website that describes supposedly clean coal technology and scrubbers that is currently in use. This is very misleading and cynical. The fact is that the scrubbing technology utilized in the United States was designed to remove acid rain pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, and does little to remove lead and mercury organic gases from the smokestack wastes. The original scrubbers, utilized after the clean air acts in 1985 were passed, actually removed hard sulfur from the coal before firing, despite the fact that the industry was well aware that the main problem was with organic sulfur attached to the carbon in the coal, which was not removed. Removal of hard sulfur from the coal dust before firing did little to clear acid rain. Little by little, the coal scrubbing technology improved over the years, but always utilized the cheapest technology, and failed to utilize the proper technology to clean harmful pollutants from the gas. Even China now utilizes the latest technology, installing the huge Mitsubishi scrubbers on new plants, while the United States has installed little of this proven technology, which removes over 90 percent of the worst organic heavy metal pollutants from the smokestack wastes. In 2011, Energy Secretary Steven Chu suggested that three types of technology would also be applicable in the future to obtain clean energy credits in the coal-fired power plant, gasification, oxyburning and use of carbon dioxide scrubbers. With oxyburning, the coal is burned in pure oxygen, allowing the carbon dioxide to be captured, and reducing the carbon mercury significantly. With gasification, the coal is gasified, producing carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which is then burned or captured to provide cleaner energy production. These technologies apply to future power plants, though, not to those already in existence. Carbon dioxide scrubbers may be added to conventional coal-fired power plants to capture sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and other pollutants. The Department of Energy is investing in research to make these technologies more affordable, and pushing for the adoption of carbon credits to spur the industrial change. None of these technologies, though, are currently in use to reduce carbon dioxide and acid rain, and none of them address the current crisis of organic mercury poisoning. To make change now, new guidelines must be enforced, and the industry must finally invest in clean coal technology that is ready to be installed.

Environmental protection from the Obama administration

What has the United States accomplished? In May of 2010, the United States government finally reduced sulfur dioxide emission limits after 40 years of waiting! Sulfur dioxide is mainly produced by coal fired power plants in the United States, and EPA reports required by law have produced evidence that this reduction in the allowable limits of sulfur dioxide emissions would prevent almost 6000 deaths, 54,000 severe asthma attacks per year, and reduce health spending by as much as $33 billion per year in treatment directly attributable to high sulfur dioxide levels in the air. These deaths and injuries are not confined to the immediate areas around the power plants, but are proven to affect the entire country, as well as foreign countries. The attacks on 9/11/2001 killed just over 2000 citizens, while this one form of power plant emission excess alone kills 6000 per year! The allowable levels were reduced by half to 75 parts per billion, and even this drastic reduction does not meet the standards urged by the American Lung Association.

While the American press continues to emphasize that China is now the leading producer of sulfur dioxide emissions, due to its quick expansion of coal fired power plants, there has been little emphasis on the fact that until 2009, the United States was by far the highest contributor of sulfur dioxide pollution into the air, and the nation of China has 5 times our population, and over 5 times our geographic size. By comparison, China would have to create 5 times our levels of sulfur dioxide pollution to exceed our contribution to the planetary air poisoning. In fact, the environmental legal limits allowed in China of sulfur dioxide emissions is lower than that allowed by the United States. To see current efforts to curb toxic pollutants in China, click this link: http://www.epa.gov/ogc/china/initiative_home.htm. To correct this problem, we need to set a better example, create affordable technology that we share with the world, and create economic incentives for United States industries that operate in China to increase compliance with their air quality standards. United States industries, supported by our consumers, ever greedy for cheaper products, consistently violate Chinese environmental regulation, and the American public and investors need to call these companies to account. A list of such scofflaws was presented by GreenPeace in 2009. Click to this link to see which U.S. multinational companies fail to follow the law in China: http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/press/releases/toxics/2009/silent-giants/. Getting informed, and speaking out, will have an effect. In the United States, the U.S. Energy Information Administration states that fossil fuels meet 84 percent of the energy demand, and fossil fuels and nuclear sources account for 93 percent of energy generation. With such a high percentage of our energy generation contributing so much unnecessary mercury and lead carbon compounds, sulfur dioxide, and radioactive wastewater, the need for change is long overdue. Surely, a country as innovative as ours could provide both energy and a more healthy environment.

While the U.S. and Europe may pat themselves on the back for apparent attempts at reducing the bulk of the world’s organic lead and mercury poisoning for the last century, for which we are responsible, and now smugly blame developing economies such as China for the present state of extreme heavy metal toxicity in the population of the world, the sad truth is that the U.S. and Europe, in response to long overdue environmental pressure, has simply exported the burden of huge organic lead and mercury pollution to China and other developing nations. By sending manufacturing jobs overseas that demand huge amounts of electricity, we not only export jobs and create unemployment, but we also insure that the bulk of necessary organic lead and mercury poisoning from coal-powered electricity plants needed to fuel our products are produced in China, Indonesia, etc. In fact, Europe merely dismantled many of its dirty coal-fired electrical generating facilities and shipped them to China, thereby reportedly complying with the Kyoto accords to some extent. The populations of the U.S. and Europe need to take a realistic look at these circumstances and take resposibility for the situation. The solution lies in promoting true clean coal technology and increasing the small contribution from clean renewable energy sources, while also reducing the consumption of products that are energy-intensive, and reducing the per capita use of electricity as well. A holistic approach, in other words, is necessary. We must also do our part to work with developing countries to create new green technology, not just blame them for what we created. We should keep in mind that this heavy metal pollution is in the atmosphere, affecting the population of the planet, and borders, ethnicities, and national identities do not significantly affect where this air-borne toxicity goes.

Aerosolized carbon mercury and lead is not the only source of heavy metal toxic pollution from dirty coal-fired power plants. Today, many coal scrubbers that have been recently installed on U.S. coal fired power plants produce a massive amount of water waste and sludge that pollutes the ground water and rivers, yet still fails to prevent gaseous lead and mercury from escaping into the air. Much of the success we achieved in reducing acid rain from sulfur ended up causing another type of toxic heavy metal pollution in these massive lakes of toxic sludge that seap into our water supplies. The aerosolized organic lead and mercury contamination was not significantly reduced by the technology that we currently utilize. In 1999, the EPA finally won a lawsuit requiring that the industry clean this organic lead and mercury gas from smokestack emissions, yet the Bush and Cheney administration overturned the ruling in 2000. This cynical and duplicitous history of supposed clean coal technology, even advertised on the official Department of Energy website, is an insult to the intelligence of the United States public. Finally, the public is becoming educated and speaking out to accomplish what their elected representatives were supposed to do, protect the health and well being of their constituents.

“Environmental protection is not just protection of the environment, but protection of the health of our citizens, especially the young, the old, and the sick, from dangerous and harmful environmental causes of disease”

How bad is the methy mercury accumulation and its harmful effect in the United States? A January 24, 2012 article in the Science section of the New York Times, entitled Mercury‘s Harmful Reach Has Grown, Study Suggests, by Anthony DePalma, reports that a study by the Biodiversity Research Institute of Gorham, Maine, found that methymercury accumulation and its harmful effects was now widespread throughout the Northeastern United States. Dangerously high levels of methylmercury have now been measured in forest growth, mountaintops, bogs and marshes, not just in large lakes and rivers, or the ocean water, and dangerously high levels of organic mercury poisoning has been found to be widespread in many species of birds and wild animals. Studies have demonstrated the wide array of harmful health effects, especially on the nervous system, in these species. For instance, higher levels of organic mercury accumulation was proven to affect the range of frequencies achieved in mating calls of zebra finches, affecting reproduction. The ill effects of organic mercury poisoning were found to occur at much lower levels than previously thought possible. Songbirds showed a 10 percent decrease in the rate of successfully hatched eggs with just blood mercury levels of 0.7 parts per million, and a 30 percent decrease in egg hatching rates when the levels reached 1.7 parts per million. Such studies are difficult to apply in the human population, but these studies imply that much of the increase in fertility problems in humans in the industrialized countries with vast organic mercury pollution could be attributed to this organic methyl mercury contamination. The scientists of the Biodiversity Research Institute stated that these birds act as sentinels for what is happening in our environment, and the affects on human health. Their studies have noted a wide array of neurological problems from the slow accumulation of organic mercury in the tissues, with erratic behavior, loss of some of the radar sensitivity in bats, and other measurable neurological deficits. Timothy H. Tear, director of science for the Nature Conservancy of New York, stated: “What people don‘t realize is that our rain isn‘t just acidic. It is neurotoxic (due to organic mercury and lead pollution).&rquo;

Many of our politicians are concerned about public health over huge industrial profit, but the politicians that accept lobbying and campaign money from these industries that harm our health have been able to thwart the efforts of honest, concerned elected officials. The public must become informed and voice their concern for this to change. The history of regulation of these aerosolized forms of mercury, lead and other heavy metal contaminants is both complicated and pitiful. Between 1971 and 1980, much research determined that these airborne mercury and lead contaminants posed significant health risk. In 1980, Section 109 of the Clean Air Act directed that the EPA should establish an independant committee of seven experts to complete reviews of the information each 5 years, and that these reviews should guide EPA standards. In 1990, the standard for airborne lead was lowered to .5 micrograms per cubic meter, but the EPA was directed to concentrate its efforts aimed at reducing nonair sources instead, within the Title 1 Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990. These EPA directives during the Reagan and Bush administration served to postpone the inevitable demand to add effective air scrubbers to smokestacks of our coal fired energy plants, or develop a true clean coal technology. Added to this were guidelines that protected the industry from costly improvements to existing power plants, pushing the requirements to the realm of new power plants. What this policy did was to encourage expansion of existing power plants to skirt the EPA guidelines, and to further delay implementation of new technology in the United States.

In 1999, the EPA finally won a longstanding suit with the Tennessee Valley Authority and other large coal fired electrical producers to either install effective air scrubbers at considerable cost, or pay a huge cleanup fine. This was the same corporation that was in the news in the winter of 2008 because a levy broke on a holding pond and flooded 300 acres with waste from a coal-fired energy plant containing carcinogenic lead, mercury, arsenic, etc. Cheap air scrubbing technology at this plant not only failed to significantly decrease organic gaseous lead and mercury airborne pollution, but also created a massive dangerous lake of harmful water pollutants of solid and liquid heavy metals that the company did nothing to clean up. EPA regulation and enforcement of this carcinogenic and toxic waste from coal fired energy plants was postponed throughout the Bush Cheney administered years due to economic pressures. In 2000, the Bush and Cheney administration brought in industry experts and found a way to undermine the EPA lawsuit and reverse the enforcement of an agreement to add scrubber technology to our coal fired energy plants. Subsequently, many EPA officials quit their jobs and complained that the the EPA was undermined by the current administration. New standards for risk management were not completed until 2007, and public hearings were not held on these revisions until the summer of 2008. Final evaluation of current information on lead and mercury study from a wide variety of sources revealed the pertinent information for public health. The information in this article is derived from the Federal Register; Vol 73; No 219; Nov 12, 2008; Rules and Regulations.

In addressing control of the vast amount of lead and mercury gases added to our environment yearly, the EPA did a study in 2002 that showed that there were 12 stationary sources in the country with lead emissions over 5 tons per year, and 124 sources over 1 ton of lead emission per year. The nearly 200 tons of airborne toxic emissions from these 136 sources does not even include the tons of mercury poured yearly into our environment. These sources are predominantly coal-fired electrical power plants and smelters. Rules and regulations put in place by the federal administration require that 'Reasonably Available Control Measures', 'Reasonably Available Control Technology', and 'Reasonable Further Progress' be a part of any regulatory process. These rules are general means by which the offending industries may claim unreasonable financial burden and put off cleaning up this threat to public health indefinately. These rules make it difficult for the EPA and state agencies to even insure that the offending industries make linear incremental progress in cleaning up this very threatening problem. As our population grows and energy demand increases, these amounts of harmful airborne organic lead and mercury continue to rise. To a large number of patients that are finding that they have devastating health problems, the feeling is that these contaminants should have been decreased or eliminated a long time ago.

"For six or seven years, the Bush administration had absolutely blocked any attempt to create a legally binding instrument (to reduce organic mercury toxins in the environment). The Obama administration, within three or four weeks of inauguration, was able to put that into reverse." Susan Egan Keane, policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council

The current health threat from airborne organic heavy metal toxins and the pollutants that accompany them in smokestack emissions that aren't scrubbed effectively

Lead and mercury contamination from coal-fired power plants are not the only significant health risk attributed to these plants and the lack of air scrubbers on their emission stacks. The EPA created an unbiased institute to assess these industries titled the Health Effects Institute of Ottawa. This institute compiled epidemiological data gathered from over 35,000 people over 18 years and from over an additional 150,000 people in recent years, and reported that soot, or fine particle air pollution, mainly from coal-fired power plants and oil refineries, increased premature death from cardiovascular disease by 100%, or caused twice the number of premature deaths. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, with 288 deaths per 100,000 citizens yearly in 2004. Despite reports that outlined these dangers in 2006, the EPA, which regulates fine particle air emissions, failed to lower chronic exposure limits to protect public health. This was challenged by public groups and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declared in 2008 that this decision was inadequate.

The 2008 EPA report on lead contamination found that the major health threat is posed by airborne lead, which is emitted from a variety of sources and occurs in a variety of particle sizes. These lead particles of small size may deposit very far from the source, and once deposited, can subsequently be resuspended in the ambient air and contribute to toxic concentrations for some years into the future. The human exposure is both from inhaling the air and from indirect exposure from contaminated water, food and dust. Estimating the separate contributions of these various sources is complicated, and is dependant on specific regional sources and concentrations, making uniform legal enforcement difficult. The EPA determined that in various cases, air contamination might be the primary source, and others water and food. In some circumstances, old lead pipes or lead paint could be a significant source of the lead, although airborne lead and mercury were by far the most significant sources affecting public health, since the lead from pipes and paint is inorganic. Once organic lead and mercury enter the human body, either via the air or by ingestion, they bioaccumulate, predominantly in the bone, but also in the soft tissues of the brain, liver, kidney etc. Studies of the ratio of the lead air concentration and the subsequent blood concentration levels found that there was considerable variance, with children living near smelters having a blood concentration that was six times greater, in relation to the air concentration, than normal, showing that various forms of air contamination posed increased risk.

The current EPA analysis shows that lead has been demonstrated to exert "a broad array of deleterious effects on multiple organ systems via widely diverse mechanisms of action." These include neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental effects, decreased or altered blood cell synthesis in the marrow, reproductive problems, and ill effects on kidney, cardiovascular, and immune function. The effects were most pronounced on children and mainly attributed to airborne contamination. Adults, too, were found to be affected pathologically at blood levels lower than previously understood. Some people with certain genetic polymorphisms were more susceptible to injury. Functional neurotoxicity in children included sensory, motor, cognitive and behavioral impacts. Studies showed problems with learning, attention deficit, coordination, etc. and findings showed that these problems could persist for many years. From these studies the patient should understand that clearing lead and mercury from the system still would not guarantee a quick recovery, that neurodegenerative and other health problems probably worsened slowly until more severe symptoms materialized, and that measures must be taken to insure that subsequent generations of citizens do not suffer this same fate.

The 2007 EPA report found that the scientific panel unanimously supported substantially lowering the acceptable levels of lead concentration. The report indicated that the three main industry associations (National Association of Manufacturers, Non-ferrous Founders Association, and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce) continue to insist, despite overwhelming expert evidence, that standards of acceptable levels should not be lowered, that non-airborne contamination was of primary concern, and that reduction of air contamination will not significantly benefit the public good. This demonstrates the self-serving and short-sighted attitude on the part of our industrial leaders, and demands that public governmental regulation be the primary mechanism of cleaning up this mess. The EPA administrator concluded that acceptable levels should be lowered for the public safety, but that there were no present evidence-based guidelines to establish clear public health protection.

Mercury contamination is very similar to lead contamination, and predominantly comes from the same sources, with most organic mercury consumed from agricultural products contaminated by distant sources of airborne organic methylmercury and inorganic divalent mercury. Contamination of the soil locally is a concern, especially from unregulated chlor-alkali plants that produce chlorine and lye, but the greatest threat in our environment is from the airborne organic mercury particles, predominantly created by burning organic fuel, namely carbon based coal. Studies have shown that, among the trace elements of coal, mercury is cited as the material released into the atmosphere at the highest rate. The main differences between organic mercury and organic lead toxicity is that lead mainly accumulates into our bones, making it very hard to get rid of, while most mercury compounds have a relatively short half-life of a few months, and are eliminated at a higher rate than the lead compounds. This does not diminish the serious consequences of mercury accumulation, though, especially in the brain.

Although organic, or carbon containing, mercury compounds are the most injurious to our health, some forms of inorganic mercury released in industrial carbon burning processes have also been shown to be a health threat in less direct ways in our bodies

The EPA estimates that simple methylmercury, the most toxic form known, accounts for 10% of the total mercury contamination of our agricultural products. Divalent mercury accounts for 90% of the mercury exposure to our agricultural food. Divalent mercury is an inorganic mercury molecule that has a valency, or electrical charge, of 2+, making it very attractive to and reactive with other molecules in our bodies. Recent study of the health effects of divalent mercury also find devastating systemic risks to our health. A joint Japanese American study from 1999, that included Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, found that divalent mercury blocked human skeletal and cardiac muscle sodium channels, potentially causing an array of problems, including heart attacks and chronic regional pain syndromes such as reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), as well as peripheral neuropathies. The array of health problems now associated with sodium channelopathy is enormous. The 1997 EPA report relies on past study of specific populations in Iraq and Japan that were proven to be poisoned, acutely or chronically, by mercury contamination. The Iraq study showed that paresthesia, or peripheral neuropathy, was the most common effect observed in a population overtly affected by inorganic mercury contamination.

Health threats from inorganic, or divalent mercury, continue to emerge as more study is completed. Even past studies demonstrated alarming risk from divalent mercury. The Department of Toxicology at Purdue University, in 1974, found that divalent mercury interacted with acetylcholine to produce hyperactivity of adrenal release of catecholamines, namely epinephrine, norepinephrine (adrenalins), and L-dopa, our major stress hormones. Anxiety disorders are becoming increasingly prevalent in the United States, and the taking of selective norepinephrine and serotonin releasing inhibitors as antianxiety agents are now very common. Adrenal stress syndromes are linked to hyptertension and subclinical hypothyroid syndromes as well. (Refer to Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, Volume 28, Issue 1, April 1974, Pages 82-87).

Divalent mercury, or inorganic mercuric mercury, may also be converted to methylmercury in our lakes and streams by activity of the flora and fauna. This makes contamination of our waters, and both the fish consumed from these waters, as well as the agricultural products irrigated or fertilized by these water product, of particular concern. Concentrations of mercury in our lakes and streams is increasing over time, and studies have confirmed that levels of mercury in wildlife affected by these waters have demonstrated significant adverse effects on reproduction. The EPA also poses the possibility that humans may be more sensitive to this reproductive risk due to differences in ability to detoxify methylmercury. Both inorganic divalent mercury and methylmercury can also be converted to gaseous mercury in our waters by sunlight irradiation and natural organic matter, such as fulvic acid. Fulvic acid, also called humic acid, is created by the microbial decay of plant and animal matter, and so is prevalent in all natural waters and soils. This process adds considerable mercury contamination to the air we breath, as well as to the food chain overall.

In addition to the human suffering posed from lead and mercury contamination, the EPA concluded that the environments near airborne lead industry were also heavily impacted, with loss of species diversity, loss of vegetation, changes to community composition, increased invasive species and decrease in growth of native species of vegetation. These environmental impacts also have an indirect negative health impact on humans, with increased allergens, decreased nutrients in our crops, increased use of pesticides and herbicides to control invasive species on our farms, etc.

Misdirection - the focus on mercury in dental fillings

An enormous amount of publicity of the mercury in dental fillings has been disseminated in the last decade, and this has taken the public focus off of the real sources of organic mercury contamination. Inert and inorganic mercury compounds do not present a direct health threat to the body. The only threat of the mercury in dental fillings comes from the minute amounts that may rub off over time and form miniscule amounts of organic mercury compound. This very minute amount of mercury is routinely eliminated from the body in the digestive tract, via the urine, and even via the blood excretion to sweat. In fact, the removal of the old mercury fillings in teeth presents a much more serious potential of inhalation of organic mercury in the form of vapor. Even this has been studied, though, and Harvard Medical School released 2006 studies showing that randomized trials of children that inhaled mercury vapors released by removal of dental amalgams did not result in significant neuropschological or kidney function problems over the next 5 years (PMID: 16622139). These children had significantly higher levels of urinary excreted mercury, but no discernable difference was noted in brain function tests or kidney function from the children that did not have the mercury fillings removed.

This focus on such sources of mercury as inert dental fillings, tuna, and even lead paint, has succeeded in misdirecting the public alarm away from the real heavy metal toxin sources. Hopefully, such articles as this succeed in directing the public attention to the dangerous public health threats and both build individual awareness and public outrage that our government has been dragging its feet and serving the polluting industries more than the individual citizens.

Diagnosing organic lead and mercury accumulation

Unfortunately, there are few tests routinely available to actually and directly confirm lead and mercury accumulation in deep tissues, especially in the brain tissues, or the accumulation of organic lead compounds in the bone. Tests that simply reveal the amount of excreted lead and mercury in the urine show superficial and immediate contamination. For this reason, a number of indirect tests are being studied. One important test involves hormonal testing. Relatively inexpensive hormonal panels, studying active metabolites of hormones and related molecules, give the patient a thorough profile to guide therapy. High levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) may indicate a hormonal imbalance related to accumulation of mercury and lead. SHBG is also referred to as Testosterone-estrogen binding globulin, and is not a specific indicator, but does help the physician and patient understand the potential problems related to high SHBG level. SHBG does increase with aging, and could signify overstimulation in the body by estradiol or testosterone, potentially by xeno-estrogens, or industrial chemicals that mimic estrogen, such as the phthalates in many soft plastic containers, i.e. bottled water, or chemical coatings applied to new car seats and steering wheels. Cadmium and mercury accumulation have been shown to inhibit the ability of estradiol to bind in the body, though, and so the test may indicate also that these heavy metal ions have accumulated in the body, resulting in increases production of the binding protein. To fully assess the patient, the physician notes an unusually high SHBG in testing, and assesses the signs and symptoms, as well as the general profile of the patient, to determine that mercury accumulation may be the cause.

Of course, with economic incentives, testing for lead and mercury in the body may be misused to push expensive therapies. Many clinics have used laboratory tests that detect extremely low levels of these heavy metal toxins that are probably found in nearly every aging person in the United States. The resulting alarming test results are used to sell chelating therapies that are sometimes expensive and do not work that well. These clinics often use a provocative chelating agent before collecting urine samples in order to increase the levels of excreted heavy metal toxins. Such tests may not show the real levels of heavy metal toxins in the deep tissues, and reveal instead the superficial heavy metal accumulations in the digestive tract. Ethical medical experts now utilize whole blood testing, such as the tests available from Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp. Chelating therapies that are harmless and pose no toxicity are now widely available, and such conservative measures should be utilized before resorting to toxic chelation therapies in all cases that do not pose an immediate risk.

Therapeutic measures that can be taken to try to remove accumulations of heavy metals from the body, or to offset the damage from the toxic lead and mercury accumulations

Removing accumulations of small particle organic lead, mercury and other toxic heavy metals from the body tissues is not easy. Chelation therapy and the use of activated charcoal taken by mouth are two of the most well know therapies. Chelation is an often lengthy series of treatments that introduces molecules that bind to the arsenic, lead, mercury, iron, aluminum, zinc etc. It is administered intravenously, intramuscularly or by mouth under medical supervision in repeated treatments at in-patient hospital clinics. The treatment is rarely approved in standard medicine unless it is demonstrated that there is an acute poisoning, or that a significant history and laboratory analysis confirms severe toxic accumulation. Some of the chelating agents pose risk and present adverse side effects. The chelating agents taken by mouth include DMPS (dimercatpopropane-sulfonate), the choice of doctors in Asia and Europe, but not approved in the U.S., and DMSA (dimercaptopropane-sulfonate), as well as D-pencillamine. There are also newly approved chelation chemicals with proven safety, such as Prussion Blue, Fe7,(CN)18,(H2O)x, which is used to chelate cesium and thallium. Cesium is a radioactive byproduct of nuclear power plants, and thallium is mostly a toxic waste product of electronic plants, but also of pharmaceutical manufacture. The chelation chemicals EDTA, disulfram, Ca-EDTA, DHEG, IDA, EBONTA and Batimastat are also being employed and studies further. There are a growing number of holistic chelation clinics in Asia, Australia and Europe, but as expected, medical doctors in the United States are very skeptical and negative toward this health practice.

Chelation is a natural process in our bodies. The word chelate comes from the Greek word chel, referring to a crab's claw, elucidating the intrinsic manner in which chelating agents bind to metal ions to decrease toxicity. Since charged metal molecules can easily attract to and bind with other molecules, creating an accumulation that is harmful to the animal or plant organism, nature has evolved a number of chelating techniques. The metal ions usually bind quickly to various nutrient acids, such as citric acid, malonic acid, and various amino acids, thereby utilizing the metal ions in a positive manner, or facilitating elimination. This is the simplest form of natural chelation, and citric acid and glycine are the two most prolific chelation agents (glycination). The array of strong and weak chelating agents control the use of and protection from metal ions. Acidity, or pH, also plays an important role in the regulation of natural chelation in the body. Chelation in the soil is an important part of our natural chelation ecology as well, and altering of the natural soils with chemicals has severely depleted this protective chelating mechanism, allowing normally non-toxic metal ion complexes to accumulate in the soils as toxic complexes, which then get into the food plants, feed animals, and ourselves.

There are thus an array of natural chelating agents which can be taken therapeutically, but each has its strengths and weaknesses. These include citric acid, L-glycine, amino acid combinations, milk thistle, activated charcoal, alfalfa sprouts, dried barleygrass powder, apple pectin, chlorella, spirulina, blue-green algae, mineral chelates (e.g. zinc chelate, calcium chelate, magnesium chelate), garlic, CoQ10, kelp, N-acetyl cysteine, zinc monomethionine, kunbu seaweed, and coral calcium formulas. An array of these can now be obtained in formulas, such as Oral ChelatoRx from Vitamin Research. Read on to get more details of these natural chelating agents.

Currently, DMSA is the preferred chemical chelating agent in clinical use, especially for higher levels of mercury accumulation. DMSA also speeds the elimination of arsenic, antimony, bismuth and gold. While DMSA also helps eliminate lead, this process is much slower than the chelating of mercury, as lead is stored more easily in the bones and thus elimination is slow.

Since chelation requires a sulfur donor in the body, compounds such as MSM, which contain sulfur, are theoretically beneficial in this process. Sulfur also aids antioxidant activity, stimulates bile secretion, and protects against toxins and radiation. Sam-E, L-cysteine, zinc methionine (OptiZinc), and supplements that improve the glutathione metabolism, such as glutamic acid, L-cysteine (and N-acetyl cysteine), and L-glycine will also aid in providing the necessary sulfur metabolism to increase the effectiveness of chelation therapy. Taurine is another sulfur source that is beneficial, as are the herbs sang bai pi, butterbur, stinging nettle, qian hu, and the foods parsnip, dill, horseradish, cabbage, spinach, radish and cucumber.

Use of more moderate agents includes activated charcoal, which usually presents no ill effects, as well as cathartic and clearing herbal formulas, antioxidants, monofood fasting with fibrous dietary material (e.g. popcorn), and various nutritional supplements that aid the body's natural chelating activity, such as DMSA and EDTA. Activated charcoal is effective with mercury accumulation, but has a poor effect with iron and elemental metals. Periodic low dose activated charcoal is harmless if there is no bowel obstruction present. DMSA is a sulfhydryl-containing substance which binds to mercury, lead, cadmium and zinc, but has some potential side effects and should be monitored under supervision of a Complimentary Medicine physician. EDTA, or calcium disodium ethylenediaminetetracetic acid, is combined with other magnesium and potassium salts to aid chelation. Products, such as Oral ChelatoRx by Vitamin Research, combine these chelating mineral salts with chlorella, malic acid, serratopeptase enzyme, and support nutrients, to form a safe and possibly effective chelating supplement. Alpha-lipoic acid, in combination with Vitamins C, E, B6, coenzyme Q10, milk thistle and SamE will improve the thiol capacity and glutathione levels to assist in detoxification and reduce neurotoxicity. Chlorella, a fresh water algae usually taken as a powder of pill, has been shown to be effective as a chelating detoxifying agent, especially in elimination of cadmium and mercury. A number of Chinese herbs have been studied and found useful in clinical practice, and an experienced herbalist will be able to prescribe these effectively after specific research is performed. Examples of these herbs include shigao, or gypsum selenite, which normalizes excess sodium electrolytes caused by methylmercury accumulation, and yansui, a dried variety of coriander leaf similar to parsley and cilantro. The herb Phyllanthus emblica, or Yu gan zi, a dried fruit, has been shown to protect against genotoxicity induced by heavy metals such as lead and aluminum. Another Phyllanthus, the leaves of P. urinaria or niruri, called Ye xia zhu, has been shown to be effective in clinical study to treat chronic Hepatitis B. Milk thistle has also been found effective to aid the liver in detoxification of heavy metals. Correct dosage, form and quality, as well as the correct combination with other herbs in formula is important in these therapies. As always, acupuncture is symbiotic with herbal therapy to enhance effects.

Some other harmless therapies could also be effective, and some of these therapies could be used as a preventative method to decrease bioaccumulation with periodic use. These gentler methods of chelation are useful as an added therapy, as healthy habits, or may be utilized during periods when monofood fasting or elimination diets are utilized. Apple pectin binds toxins and metals, aiding excretion, and apple peel contains rutin, a chemical also found in buckwheat sprouts, that has been studied in relation to chelation of iron. Consuming properly prepared dried buckwheat sprouts as a morning supplement is highly recommended, as this supernutrient also contains a variety of antioxidant and detoxifying chemicals. Chelated calcium, or coral calcium, is effective to prevent lead from depositing in the tissues, and quality coral calcium supplements contain a variety of beneficial nutrients that help with this effect. The body has difficulty distinguishing lead and calcium, and thus most organic lead ingestion accumulates in the bone and organs and affect the marrow. Chelated calcium purportedly prevents organic lead and other heavy metals from depositing in our bones and tissues. Organic lead also easily reacts with selenium and depletes this important nutrient, thus periodic selenium supplementation may be important with chronic lead accumulation. Selenium deficiency is associated with hypothyroidism and immune deficiency. Intake of seaweeds and kelp are purported to aid in removing mineral deposits. Kunbu and other seaweeds are widely used therapeutically in Chinese herbal medicine. Sulfur containing amino acids, specifically L-Lysine, L-Cysteine, and L-Cystine, purportedly act as detoxifiers and help remove heavy metal accumulations.

Chlorella is another benign and helpful nutrient supplement that has been proven useful in detoxification and chelation. Japanese research after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki revealed that chlorella, a fresh water blue-green algae like spirulina, increased elimination of cadmium, threefold in feces and sevenfold in urine. In 1979, further Japanese research revealed that chlorella helped detoxify uranium and lead (Horikoshi et al, 1979). More recent studies are promising in data presenting the potential of chlorella to detoxify PCBs and dioxins, and mercury. Utilizing a variety of these chelating and detoxifying aids in combination is recommended due to the difficulty in achieving removal of heavy metal toxins from our cells and tissues. As we see from this article, there is ample evidence that the entire population of the United States is affected by lead and mercury accumulation, as well as a variety of other environmental toxins and metal ions, and we could all benefit from increased adoption of chelating therapies. The emphasis on lead contamination from paint, and mercury from tuna, has led many of us to adopt a false belief that if we avoid these sources we are safe, but this is definately not the case.

Very mild chellating formulas are now available on the market. These usually utilize a combination of EDTA mineral salts, chlorella, aged garlic, serratiopeptidase proteolytic enzyme, and gugulipids. Vitamin Research offers a quality formula called Oral ChelatoRx. EDTA is a widely used initialism for the organic compound ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, which is a polyamino carboxylic acid, and forms strong complexes with metal ions by donation of electron pairs from the nitrogen and oxygen atoms to the metal ion to form multiple chelate rings. EDTA binds metal and mineral ions, especially iron and calcium, and studies show that while this does not eliminate the heavy metal toxins from the body, they do exhibit diminished reactivity. This form or chelation may not decrease lead and mercury accumulation, but would help with patients that are suspected of having calcified tissue irritation, or problems related to iron ion accumulation. Iron ion accumulation is associated with neurodegenerative disorders, tinnitus, postmenopausal osteoporosis, liver cirrhosis, cancer, heart disease, hypothalamic insufficiency, anemia hemochromatosis, and more, and so this form of chelation may be beneficial. The chelating complex offers some mild aid to lead chelation with chlorella, and helps clear tissue accumulations with a number of healthy supplements.

To truly address the issue of lead and mercury accumulation, the patient must be persistent and patient. This will not clear overnight, and a number of aids to chelation, as well as increased avoidance of heavy metal pollution, should be adopted. The conditions aggravated or caused by lead and mercury accumulation in the body may be gradually improved over a persistent therapeutic course of a few years.

While the individual patient cannot easily reverse the damages caused by airborne lead, mercury and other heavy metals in our environment, the public must insist on immediate implementation of measures to decrease environmental contamination and the immediate cooperation of the industries most at fault, including the coal-fired electrical producers, smelters, mining concerns and other polluting industrial sources. Below are lists of the most harmful heavy metal contaminants and their studied effects.

• methyl mercury: currently, there are few industrial sources of this organic mercury, or mercury atom bonded to a methyl carbohydrate, that is responsible for most of the devastating chronic health problems in our population today. Coal fired electrical power plants are responsible for almost all of this pollution, although waste incineration of the coal sludge and other products that contain inorganic mercury, as well as the Chloralkali process used in the production of chlorine and lye contribute as well. Since methylmercury, or organic mercury, does not eliminate easily from animal tissue, it accumulates in tissues where binding chemicals transport it. Methymercury also heavily affects electrolyte balance in the circulating blood, contributing to cardiovascular and kidney disease, and affecting acidity in the body. Since methymercury, and not other forms of inorganic mercury, are combined easily with essential amino acids, these molecules mimic other essential molecules in our body and easily cross our defenses, the blood brain barrier, for instance. This is the reason for the broad array of neurodegenerative effects purportedly caused by or worsened by our ingestion of methyl mercury. Methyl mercury is also found in scientific study to cause or be linked to autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, poor liver function, cancer, peripheral neuropathy, hearing impairment, and other health problems. The 1997 EPA report on mercury health risk stated: "Assessment were made of all three forms of mercury (methylmercury, inorganic mercury, and elemental mercury) for potential human health effects; because exposure to humans is likely to be as ingested methylmercury, that form is emphasized in this volume...The assessment of exposure pathways consequent to emissions of mercury from anthropogenic (manmade, esential coal fired power plants) sources indicates the major exposure to both humans and wildlife is from organic mercury, largely methylmercury, in fish." Since 1997, this assessment has found that more direct and prevalent forms of methylmercury exposure, other than eating predatory fish, are ubiquitous in our environment. Even this 1997 report stated that 90% of the total mercury exposure for our agricultural products was from distant sources of airborne emissions, and theat the "dominant mercury exposure pathway within the terrestrial food chain is: atmoshpheric mercury to green plants to human consumption."
• organic lead: technical developments that allowed the measurement of organic lead in our air, specifically from auto exhaust and combined with carbon dioxide, began in 1967, and resulted in the Clean Air Act in 1971. Unfortunately, the major industries learned from these developments how to fight the further regulation of environmental organic lead pollutants. Much of the pertinent information on this contaminant is found in the article above.

Information Resources

Numerous research studies have demonstrated both the demographic links of neurodegenerative diseases and fetal harm to such contaminants as airborne lead and mercury, as well as the evidence of pathophysiology. The United States government established the Evironmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act partly in response to these scientific findings, but repeated undermining of the legislation and enforcement due to industry lobbying has maintained a high level of harm to the American public. These resources will help clarify some of the information:

1. Medscape gives a conservative but reasonable history of the issue of mercury contamination at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/504642. Unfortunately, this article was pulled from free access. You may try researching with key words to find it. I am attempting to find the article in anther link.
2. The U.S. Geological Survey also gives a conservative but reasonable account of the issue of mercury contamination at: http://www.usgs.gov/themes/factsheet/146-00/
3. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also gives a conservative but reasonable account of the issue of mercury contamination at: http://www.epa.gov/hg/eco.htm
4. The U.S. government provides facts on pollutants in groundwater and health effects which clarifies the issues of organic metals versus inorganic metals at: http://www.soil.ncsu.edu/publications/Soilfacts/AG-439-14/index.htm
5. A list of the wide variety of common health problems from lead bioaccumulation can be seen at: http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst7.html
6. PubMed gives a technical but pertinent account of scientific study of methylmercury health problems at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7179304
7. Further PubMed citations give a technical overview of the effects of selenium on methylmercury in scientific study of methylmercury health problems at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/363410
8. A 2010 study at China Medical University in Taichung, Taiwan, found that even inorganic mercury causes pancreatic beta-cell death via direct oxidative stress: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20006636
9. A 2006 study at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, found that organic methylmercury induces pancreatic beta-cell death and dysfunction, the cause of true diabetes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16918248
10. A 2008 study at the National Institute for Minamata Disease in Kunamoto, Japan, found that organic methymercury affected the immune system and cell signalling pathways, creating damage to both cell mitochondria and membranes, leading to cell death and dysfunction in muscle stem cell lines, or myogenic cell lines. The implications for a variety of related diseases is apparent, especially autoimmune muscular disease such as dermatomyositis. Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome with ataxia, numbness in the extremities, muscle weakness, and narrowing of the fields of vision and hearing, caused by organic mercury poisoning. How many mild cases of neuopathy could be caused by the ubiquitous mercury contamination in our environment can only be speculated upon: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17920127
11. Life Extension provides a useful synopsis of chelation and detoxification of heavy metal contamination at: http://www.lef.org/protocols/prtcl-156b.htm
12. The FDA provides an explanation and history of Prussian Blue as an approved chelation therapy for cesium and thallium: http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/prussian_blue/Q&A.htm#4
13. Japanese study with Coriandrum sativum, or Yan Sui, a Chinese herb: http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200303/000020030302A0929351.php
14. The EPA presents additional information summary of air pollutants that is outdated but informational at: http://www.epa.gov/Region7/programs/artd/air/quality/health.htm
15. Pesticides that bioaccumulate and cause neurodegenerative damage and should be eliminated from the environment, such as lindane, are explained at: http://www.headlice.org/lindane/_world/environment/pops.htm
16. A joint American Japanese study of some of the effects of divalent mercury compounds can be seen at: http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495(00)76386-7
17. A Japanese study of clean coal technology can be seen at: http://www.brain-c-jcoal.info/cctinjapan-files/english/2_5B4.pdf
18. A June 3, 2010 article in the New York Times reports that finally, after 40 years, the United States has finally lowered sulfur dioxide emission standards, by half, to 95 parts per billion, measured hourly. This will require the long-awaited actual air scrubbers to be applied to coal fired power plants that were suggested in 1971 and highly urged in 1985 by the Clean Air Act: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/science/earth/04sulfur.html
19. A July 7, 2010 article in the New York Times reports that the EPA, acting under a federal court order of the Obama Administration, has issued new rules for coal fired power plants to significantly reduce sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides with scrubbers, which will result in an estimated $120 billion savings on total health care expenditures, and much suffering, and finally succeeds in instituting rules that were delayed for years under the Bush administration. New rules for lead and mercury are soone to be announced as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/science/earth/07epa.html
20. An August 9, 2010 report in the New York Times announced that the EPA, under the Obama administration, is finally setting the first limits ever for mercury emissions at cement factories. This enforcement will push the industry away from the Portland cement manufacture to the adoption of manufacture of cleaner manufacturing techniques pioneered in China, and greatly reduce green house gas emissions: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/us/10brfs-MERCURYLIMIT_BRF.html

The information on this website is not intended to be used as a specific medical advice or cure. Please consult with the practitioner or an appropriate physician, such as a licensed acupuncturist, naturopath, or medical doctor, to discuss the proper application of the information contained on this website.