There's good reason to think mercury could be a cause of endemic psychological dysfunction--methyl mercury was the sad story behind the character of the "Mad Hatter" in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Mercury poisoning can cause depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain and personality changes, and there's good reason to believe that people turn to substance abuse to self-medicate. It would not surprise me that low level organic mercury poisoning could result in a pattern of alcoholism and other substance use. After all, we know very well that there is a link between lead exposure and criminal activity and substance abuse. And we know that as exposure to lead has gone down, so has crime.
I think I first became aware that mercury was a problem because of cinnabar--I collect jewelry and the idea that certain jewelry could be mildly toxic fascinated me. It also reminded me of the deadliness of lead used in ancient cosmetics--and it bothered me that mercury poisoning is associated with fish because I eat rather a lot of it--tinned fish is a protein go-to when you work long hours and don't have a lot of time for cooking. And I adore sushi.
Anyway, this also takes me back to my weird fascination with horror movies and disasters--there is a John Frankenheimer movie with methyl mercury as the villain--where it poisoned and mutated local wildlife into a horrific predator. As grisly as the movie is, the reality of severe mercury pollution on a population is far worse. It can be a teratogen, but not in the way that makes cinematic monsters, just very damaged humans.
So it definitely makes a lot of sense to me that random elemental exposures can do widespread harm--whether through organic or man-made problems. The question is what to do about it? You can't clean up what might be just nature--a place that is simply bad to live in. I guess you could figure out a way to live that reduces exposure.
In a lot of ways, though, we figure out how to live with our environment and make it worse. Profit on the dysfunction and make it worse. The world we live in is a problem--how we live in it is our solution.
1 comment:
Thank you. I don't often post local or personal stuff, but with teen grandkids and the county the highest suicide rate in the state/nation, not to mention all I've seen across four generations ... I've trying through the more traditional methods to get people to pay attention to this for a very long time. I've known of it since the seventies. Now I'm posting it to my obscure though unwitting politics/religion/science blog hoping someone will see it (which is kinda' weird given the whole Cassandra's Grandson thing) My G'ma would have pointed to the back of the fish and game guide: says don't eat the fish.
I sometimes think it should go the way of Love Canal
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