“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 …