Mercury Policy Project

Today, a parent of a mercury-poisoning victim joined a medical doctor and an advocacy group in refuting the FDA’s new proposal to stop warning pregnant women and children about mercury in fish.  In 2004, the FDA joined EPA in releasing advice to restrict the species and amounts of fish eaten by women of childbearing age and children due to exposure risks to mercury.  On Friday, in a draft report submitted to the Bush White House, the FDA indicated that they were planning not only to rescind that advice, but recommend that sensitive populations eat more mercury-contaminated fish.

“Talk about getting hooked on fish stories,” said Michael Bender, MPP, Director of the Mercury Policy Project, which just released a new case study exposure report. “FDA has really gone overboard this time by casting out the science and reeling in the industry ‘line’ instead,” Bender said, referring to an industry report released prior to the FDA report that reached strikingly similar conclusions.  “Real people have been sickened by mercury in fish, demonstrating the importance of strong FDA advice on mercury in fish.” The new MPP report, Over the Limit, shares stories of  people who each ate enough store-bought fish to suffer mercury’s effects, according to their physicians.  From New Jersey to Wisconsin to California, these stories show that seafood contamination is a very real problem that should not be ignored.

Less than two years after the removal of bald eagles from the U.S.’s endangered species list, a research group in Maine has found an elevated levels of mercury in the blood and feathers of bald eagles in the Catskill Park region of New York.  This morning the Nature Conservancy-NY, along with their partners at the Biodiversity Research Institute and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, released a report about the impact of bald eagle mercury study (see summary). An executive summary and the full report can be found at BRI’s Web site. The New York Times covered the release with a major story in this morning’s Science Section.

Today, at the UNEP North American Civil Society meeting in Washington, DC, MPP, on behalf of the Zero Mercury Working Group, is advocating that the UNEP Governing Council consider and conclude that a free-standing legally binding instrument (LBI) is needed to address the global mercury challenges at its upcoming meeting in Nairobi in February.   We strongly believe that the elements of a global mercury framework related to supply (including storage and trade), emission reductions (through the use of best available technology, BAT, or otherwise), and product/process phase-outs in particular will require a legal instrument to be effective for a number of reasons including the following:

• It is the only way to control supply and eliminate global mercury trade while minimizing possibility of conflicts with international trade law
• It will ensure the required substantial global coordination and a level playing field in effectively phasing out the use of mercury in products and processes, and otherwise reducing mercury emissions from industrial sources.
• The legal instrument is the most direct and effective vehicle for prohibiting new undesired activities
• It can elevate the importance of mercury as a priority issue in countries and regions, and facilitate implementation of relevant national legislation.

According to the ZMWG, the provisions of this LBI should include:

• A broad scope that includes those human activities which contribute to the global mercury pollution problem, and addresses the entire lifecycle of mercury.
• Tailored mercury control measures to particular sectors and sources of concern.
• Measures which incorporate the Precautionary Principle, the Polluter Pays Principle, and other relevant Rio Principles.
• Recognition of the role and importance of public interest, health and environmental stakeholders. Mercury has been on the agenda of UNEP GC since 2001. Some progress has taken place since then, both at the political level and on the ground with several projects addressing the mercury crisis. However, it is now high time that a global framework is adopted to coordinate actions to reduce mercury supply, use and emissions of mercury from all global sources of concern. At the latest meeting of the Ad Hoc Open Ended Working Group on Mercury in Nairobi (October 2008), a comprehensive set of elements to be part of a global framework was agreed to by a broad consensus, and this was an important step forward. In addition, an overwhelming majority of countries supported a free-standing legally binding instrument on mercury.

Shoppers and diners can use any cell phone web browser to enter their weight and fish choice to estimate low, moderate or high level dose of mercury based on U. S. government guidelines. The cell phone calculator compliments the GotMercury.Org web version. Fish consumption is the primary source of mercury exposure in the United States. In addition, AJR 57, introduced into the California legislature by Rep.Huffman on mercury-contaminated seafood passed this year and urges the federal Food and Drug Administration to take responsibility for, and take actions to reduce, the public’s exposure to mercury in seafood by taking specified actions.

An important new book recently came out on exposure risks of methylmercury from high mercury fish consumption, Diagnosis:  Mercury; Money, Politics & Poison, by Jane M. Hightower, M.D. The book covers mercury exposure issues, lackadaisical oversight by courts of justice and government agencies, and seafood industry interference in public policy. A list of symptoms associated with mercury illness are summarized at the Diagnosis: Mercury website. “Dr. Hightower passionately argues that we still need numbers and hard facts; without them consumers cannot make appropriate informed choices. Hightower has worked long and hard on this fight to make the dangers of mercury public and this important new book highlights the long and lonely quest she has fought to help get us where we are today,” said U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, in support of the book.

The U.S. just  joined the European Union in setting a date certain to ban their mercury exports, thereby reducing the supply of commodity mercury into the world market.  Environmental groups in the U.S.  and around the world applauded the broad bi-partisan support of the legislation.  “Neither mercury nor the fish we eat recognizes federal boundaries,” Linda Greer, Director of the Health Program at NRDC, said in a statement. “Passage of this legislation banning the export of mercury is a great victory for the health of people in America and all over the world.  It will curb the flow of mercury into global commerce, keeping it out of our tuna and other fish.”

In independent actions taken in late September, the EU adopted a mercury export ban that takes effect in 2011, while earlier this month Congress passed legislation to ban U.S. mercury exports by 2013.  U.S. President George Bush signed the legislation it into law yesterday.  The Mercury Export Ban Act, S. 906, prohibits the sale of mercury by the U.S. government, prohibits the transfer of elemental mercury by Federal agencies and requires the Department of Energy (DOE)  to designate and manage an elemental mercury long-term disposal facility.The U.S. and the EU are among the top exporters of commodity mercury. Between 40 and 50% of the estimated 3,800 metric tons of annual global trade in mercury passes through the EU and the U.S.

Public interest advocates welcomed the results of a global meeting convened to take decisions on the threats posed by mercury to human health and environment. On 6-10 October 2008, the 2nd UNEP Open Ended Working Group (OEWG2) on Mercury agreed on the elements that would form part of a global framework on mercury, in preparation for the UNEP Governing Council (GC) in February 2009, where it will be decided whether a global legally binding instrument on mercury will be developed.  The UNEP GC had given the mandate to the OEWG to review and assess options for enhanced voluntary measures and new or existing international legal instruments. The OEWG2 completed its work, and will send a report to the GC including:

• A comprehensive set of elements to be part of a global framework
• Two options for global frameworks on mercury – a legal and a voluntary one.
• If a legal framework is agreed, it will be a free-standing instrument rather than being part of an existing framework.

The European Environmental Bureau’s Zero Mercury Campaign and the Mercury Policy Project/Tides Center (MPP) have and continue to be accredited organizations to United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) since 2004. In response to a recent UNEP request, we have submitted our Quadrennial Report of activities supporting the work of UNEP, which outlines many of our activities dating back to 2002 when MPP first became in engaged in working collaboratively with UNEP on global mercury issues.

A year-long investigation by the Associated Press released recently has linked small scale gold mining by African children with the purchase by Swiss companies, with the gold ending up stored in Swiss banks. Despite a lawsuit filed against the AP by a company in Switzerland–(”Earlier this year, Decafin unsuccessfully sued The AP in Switzerland to prevent its name from being published in this story, claiming it would unfairly damage the company’s reputation“)–the story finally ran. The AP reports that approximately 20% of the gold mined each year is by small scale miners, including children, who are often treated as commodities and subjected to brutal working conditions and life risking activities in pursuit of providing luxury goods to the wealthy. It’s estimated that between 650 and 1,000 metric tons of mercury are used each year by 15 million miners in more than 40 developing countries to extract the gold, exposing miners and pollution the local and global environment. The AP has provided links to 4 video clips that were produced as part of their investigations. It has several scenes of children using mercury to treat the gold. The video clips are posted on the left hand side of this Yahoo page under the title “AP Interactive”, or you can try the direct link. Numerous news outlets covered the story, including ABC News, The Washington Post (includes short slideshow), and USA Today.

After two congressional oversight hearings (at which MPP recently testified, see posts below) concerning the environmental release of dental mercury, a US House Government Oversight subcommittee is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to reform its rulemaking on dental mercury, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. In a July 28, 2008 letter to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, Domestic Policy Subcommittee Chairman Dennis Kucinich reminded FDA of its statutory duty under NEPA to prepare an environmental impact statement or conduct an environmental assessment as part of the rulemaking process in reclassifying dental mercury, classifying encapsulated amalgam alloy and dental mercury or issuing special controls for amalgam alloy.