Mercury

(13) WHAT EXACTLY IS MERCURY, METHYL MERCURY, DDT's AND PCB's? WHAT IS A SAFE LIMIT AND HOW MUCH IS IN WHALE MEAT?

Whale meat is riddled with mercury, dioxins, DDT, and PCBs at extremely high, dangerous levels. This same polluted flesh is being fed to Japanese school children in their cafeterias and sold to unwitting families nationwide. Exposure to such high levels of mercury can result in permanent brain and kidney damage. Furthermore, mercury overdose can result in neurological and digestive issues. Studies have found that the whale flesh sold in Japan uniformly exceeds the the 0.4 micrograms/wet g mercury and 0.3 micrograms/wet g methylmercury limit set by the Japanese government.

"Two main classes of pollutants have been found in cetacean meat: organic pollutants, including Organochlorines such as PCB's and DDT, which are long-lived chemicals that tend to accumulate in fatty tissues; and heavy metals like Mercury. Heavy metals are not biodegradable. They have long biological half-lives and also accumulate in tissues. Mercury is of the greatest concern as it is transformed in the marine environment to methyl mercury, which makes it even more toxic.

Toxins accumulate in the marine environment through industrial combustion processes, waste water run off and dumping of garbage, although there are limited natural sources as well. Cetaceans, like humans, are particularly susceptible due to our physiology, primarily due to the presence of fat cells that absorb and store chemicals.

While it is difficult to establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between exposure to polluted cetacean meat and human health there is data that correlates the presence of PCB's, DDT and Mercury in humans, with learning and cognitive development disorders, weakened immune systems, reproductive failure, cancers and endocrine disruptions. Many PCB's also are estrogen imitators which make them even more damaging to women, as high levels of estrogen have been linked with various forms of cancer." - Cetacean Society International; http://csiwhalesalive.org/csi07402.html

"The concentrations of total mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and organochlorine pesticides (SDDT, dieldrin, hexachlorobenzene [HCB], and SHCH) were determined in 61 whale meat products (bacon, blubber, red meat, liver, intestine, and tongue) purchased from retail outlets across Japan. Mean (range) concentrations of contaminants in all samples were: total mercury 4.17 (0.01–204); SPCB 1.14 (0–8.94); SDDT 0.98 (0–7.46); dieldrin 0.07 (0–0.35); HCB 0.06 (0–0.22); and SHCH 0.07 (0–0.19) µg/g (wet weight). The data were used to calculate estimated daily intakes (EDIs) of contaminants at two hypothetical levels of whale meat consumption. These EDIs were compared with FAO/WHO “tolerable daily intake” (TDI) values for each chemical. EDIs calculated for higher levels of whale meat consumption were in some cases exceptionally high and for many products exceeded FAO/WHO-TDIs for total mercury, PCBs, and dieldrin, with exceedance factor values (EDI/TDI) for total mercury, PCBs, and dieldrin reaching maximums of 175, 5.36, and 2.1, respectively. For sensitive consumers and those with high-level consumption (e.g., whaling communities), exposure to mercury and to a lesser extent PCBs from certain whale blubber and bacon and striped dolphin liver products could lead to chronic health effects. The Japanese community should therefore exercise a precautionary approach to the consumption of such foods in excess, particularly by high-risk members of the population." http://palumbi.stanford.edu/manuscripts/Simmonds%20et%20al%202002.pdf


"Tests on whalemeat on sale in Japan have revealed astonishing levels of mercury. While it has long been known that the animals accumulate heavy metals such as mercury in their tissues, the levels discovered have surprised even the experts.

Two of the 26 liver samples examined contained over 1970 micrograms of mercury per gram of liver. That is nearly 5000 times the Japanese government's limit for mercury contamination, 0.4 micrograms per gram.

At these concentrations, a 60-kilogram adult eating just 0.15 grams of liver would exceed the weekly mercury intake considered safe by the World Health Organization, say Tetsuya Endo, Koichi Haraguchi and Masakatsu Sakata at the University of Hokkaido, who carried out the research. "Acute intoxication could result from a single ingestion," they warn in a draft paper accepted for publication in The Science of the Total Environment."- New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2362-extreme-mercury-levels-revealed-in-whalemeat-.html

Scientific American:
"[Researchers] analyzed the total mercury content in samples of red meat, or muscle, which is the most popular whale product sold for human consumption in Japan. The researchers found that mercury levels in all 137 meat samples exceeded the guidelines of 0.4 part per million set by the Japanese government. In fact, samples of false killer whale and striped dolphin surpassed the regulations by 200 and 160 times, respectively. In total, the team identified nine different whale species and six types of dolphins and porpoises being sold as food, and determined that average mercury levels in meat from Northern cities were higher than those in samples bought in southern markets."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D97EE-31FF-1EC9-8E1C809EC588EF21

The abstract from the actual study:
"We also analyzed the DNA of these to obtain information regarding species. According to the genetic analysis, the red meats originating from nine species of odontocete and six species of mystecete were sold in Japanese markets. T-Hg concentrations in all odontocete red meats (0.52-81.0 g/wet g, n = 137) exceeded the provisional permitted level of T-Hg in marine foods set by the Japanese government (0.4 g/wet g). The highest and second highest levels of T-Hg in the red meats were found in the false killer whale (81.0 g/wet g) and striped dolphin (63.4 g/wet g), respectively. These concentrations of T-Hg exceeded the permitted level of T-Hg by about 200 and 160 times, respectively, suggesting the possibility of chronic intoxication by methyl mercury due to frequent consumption of odontocete red meats." - http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/2003/37/i12/abs/es034055n.html

"Mercury is very dangerous to children. Relatively low concentrations keep a child's brain from developing normally. Kids with mercury poisoning have problems with thinking, language, memory, motor skills, perception, and behavior...Myers suggests these large doses of mercury may be more harmful than mercury concentrations over time." - WebMD http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030515/mercury-in-fish-no-problem-in-pregnancy


MERCURY!!

Companys know whale meat is contaminated and still sell it to people. Does 7-11 hate the Japanese people?
http://www.eia-international.org/cgi/news/news.cgi?t=template&a=216&source=


The horrifying fallout of consuming mercury-polluted fare on the fetus caught the world off guard in the 1950s during a poisoning outbreak in Minamata and Niigata, Japan.
I can't find the link however to the catch of sperm whales in recent years. A customer died from the contaminated meat (mad whale prion or mercury?) and the scandal resulted in the company being destroyed or something. can anyone find the link for this? lol lost on the world wide internet. Serious though its like its been erased.