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J Epidemiol Community Health 62:378-379 doi:10.1136/jech.2007.064444
  • Speakers’ corner

Prevention of early in life mercury exposures: no more unnecessary delays

  1. Rosa Ramón1,2,
  2. Ferran Ballester1,3
  1. 1
    CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain
  2. 2
    Department of Public Health, Universitat Miguel Hernandez (UMH)
  3. 3
    Valencian School of Health Studies (EVES)
  1. Rosa Ramón, CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), and Department of Public Health, Universitat Miguel Hernandez (UMH), Spain, Escuela Valenciana de Estudios para la Salud (EVES), Juan de Garay 21, 46017 Valencia, Spain; ramon_rosbon{at}gva.es

    “Take some more tea”, the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

    “I’ve had nothing yet”, Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more”.

    “You mean you can’t take less”, said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing”

    Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll

    Known since the 19th century, the adverse neurological effects of mercury experienced by the felt-hat workers called “the madness of hatters” were graphically described in chapter 7, “A Mad Tea-Party” by Lewis Carroll. Mercury and its compounds are now considered a threat to human beings, ecosystems and wildlife owing to their high toxicity and persistence in the environment. For this reason, the European Commission presented its Community Mercury Strategy, a global action plan to address mercury pollution in 2005.1

    Fish consumption is the main source of human exposure to methylmercury in …