Mercury levels rising in newborns

[donsu]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/02/17/mercury_rising?mode=PF

A NEW, more accurate measure of mercury levels in newborns has doubled the Environmental Protection Agency's estimate of how many might have dangerous amounts of the toxin in their bodies. The new data strengthen the case for requiring coal-burning power plants and manufacturers to reduce sharply the amount of mercury in their emissions. Under the old measurement, one in 12 US women of childbearing age had unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. But researchers recently discovered that mercury levels in a fetus's umbilical cord are 70 percent higher than in its mother's blood, not the same, as had previously been believed. This means that one out of six women bearing children has a level of mercury that could cause learning disabilities, sluggishness, and other neurological problems in her offspring.

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Under its "Clear Skies" initiative, the Bush administration proposes a less rigorous approach to mercury cleanup, one that by 2010 would permit 522 percent more mercury emissions than full enforcement of the Clean Air Act. Under the administration's proposal, companies could also escape cleanup requirements by buying pollution credits from a utility hundreds of miles away.

For a pollutant like the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, such credit trading makes sense because the adverse effect of the substance is global, not local. But that is not the case with mercury. A Florida study has shown that allowing a plant to continue to spew mercury from its smokestack causes a concentration of the toxin in the immediate neighborhood.
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nowadays before you get pregnant you have to have your body checked for contaminates. that must cost a pretty penney.