A Closer Look at Mercury Hair Test

  • Hair is now a way to test people for mercury levels, as opposed to more invasive tests of blood and urine. (Photo by Anna Miller)

Health officials are experimenting with another way to gauge the level of mercury in people who eat a lot of fish. The only test sample needed is… hair. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Transcript

Health officials are experimenting with another way to gauge the level of mercury in people who eat a lot of fish. The only test sample needed is… hair. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Doctors can already test your blood and urine for mercury. Now, as a less invasive technique, some health officials can test the hair near your scalp for the toxic chemical. There’s some debate over the quality of the tests, the lab analyses, and over what a high test reading means. The federal health warning for mercury in hair is one part per million. But that’s for susceptible populations like an unborn fetus.


Jack Spengler is a professor of environmental health at Harvard University. he recently ate a lot of fish and says his hair tested out at 3 parts per million of mercury.


“But I’m not going apoplectic about it because I know if I just watch my consumption, I can moderate that over time… and there’s that safety margin…that I suspect I’d have to be much higher for much longer to really have symptoms. ”

Prolonged high levels of the most toxic form of mercury, methyl mercury can trigger various health problems in adults such as memory loss and cardiovascular damage.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Breaking Down Groundwater Pollution

  • While the idea of cleaning up the water with bacteria may be oxymoronic, Michigan State University is saying that it works. (Photo courtesy of the National Science Foundation)

Scientists in the Great Lakes region are seeing good results from a new method that fights groundwater pollution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner has more:

Transcript

Scientists in the Great Lakes region are seeing good results from a new method that fights groundwater pollution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner has more:


Researchers at Michigan State University are using a process that introduces microbial bacteria into contaminated aquifers. Over time, the microbes break down hazardous waste, usually from industrial spills. Before this new technology, the most common cleanup technique was called “air stripping.” That requires groundwater to be pumped to the surface, where toxic chemicals are basically blown out of the water and into the air.


Professor Mike Dybas says the new process doesn’t leave pollution in the ecosystem.


“It’s treatment actually occurring where the pollution is, and it is physically destructive of the contaminant. So at the end of the day, the contaminants are broken down into harmless end products.”


Dybas says the process could be used in any type of industrial or agricultural spill. He says since the microbes move with the water, cleanup could stretch for miles underground.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

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