mercury

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if, when I was a child and I played with elemental mercury, could it have effected me in some way?

I remember that my folks used to never really mind if I played with the mercury from broken thermometers and whatnot. Could it have caused various things like ADHD, Aspergers and such?

Yes.



No.

The famous experiments with mercury simply said that it was possible to duplicate the effects of autism in rats with extended doses of mercury.... but what does that really mean...
- That rats didn't start lining things up or sorting them into colours.
- The rats didn't lose the ability to empathise with other rats...

nope... they just started stimming and rocking.... heck I could think of lots of things that could have that effect.

The whole mercury->autism thing is nonsense. Mercury is a fairly indiscriminate poison. Its main mechanism of action is governed by its high affinity for sulphur - mercury will bind to the SH groups in proteins, and in doing so alter the shape of the protein, and in the case of enzymes render them non-functional. When enough mercury is present in a cell, there will be sufficient inhibition of the cell's enzymes that the cell will no longer be able to function, and the cell will die. This will affect cells all over the body, including brain cells, which will result in the loss of brain cells. The effect of mercury poisoning is brain damage; it converts healthy neurons into dead and damaged ones. Contrast with autism, in which the neurons are there and healthy, but they are simply wired in a different way to those in the brains of neurotypicals.

To use an analogy; going from a neurotypical brain to an autistic brain could be considered to be akin to changing from a Mac to a PC (or vice versa, depending on your preference). Going from a neurotypical (or autistic, for that matter) brain to a mercury-damaged brain is akin shooting your computer with a shotgun.

sorry. just lookin for a cause.

I didn't mean to cause offence. The mercury thing is mentioned a lot (it's a common myth resulting from some dodgy research), and I tend to be blunt when discussing claims of very dubious merit. If I came across as ridiculing you, that wasn't my intent.

it's all good. I just remembered something the other day about me playing with elemental mercury as a kid.

Could be many things - genetics, birth trauma, etc. - but not mercury. Mercury can cause damage, but not autism.

Bear in mind they used to use mercury in dental fillings!

I don't know how many studies they've done on people who have mercury fillings, but the US Food and Drug Administration say that they are safe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNe ... I120090729

Actually, they still do. I had to have a filling a couple of years ago, and I had to specifically tell them not to use an amalgam. They claimed that it was safe and the mercury would not be absorbed, but given that I know mercury easily forms a monatomic vapour which is easily absorbed through the lungs into the bloodstream, I was hardly going to take their word on things.

mercury vapor along with organic mercury compounds are toxic that's a reason why they don't excavate certain tombs in china.
you can inject pure mercury into your arm and not die.
but have the same amount near you so you inhale it's vapor and you will since it is absorbed well through the lunges.

If yo played with it once the difference is probably negliable it can't cause things like ADHD and ASD it basically destroys neurites(synapses) it can't account of the cellular organization seed in aspergers and autism.