User:Louispi/Erethism

[ Mercury is an element that is found worldwide in soil, rocks, and water. People who get erethism are often exposed to mercury through their jobs.] Some of the higher risk jobs that can lead to occupational exposure of workers to mercury are working in a chlor-alki, thermometer, glass blowing, or florescent light bulb factory, and working in construction, dental clinics, or in gold and silver mines. In factories, workers are exposed to mercury primarily through the base products and processes involved in making the final end consumer product. In dental clinics it is primarily through their interaction and installation of dental amalgams to treat dental caries. And in the case of the mines, mercury is used in the process to purify and completely extract the precious metals.

[Some elemental and chemical forms of mercury (vapor, methylmercury, inorganic mercury) are more toxic than other forms. The human fetus and medically compromised people (for example, patients with lung or kidney problems) are the most susceptible to the toxic effects of mercury. ]

Biomarkers of Exposure
While hatters in the past were diagnosed with erethism through their symptoms, it was sometimes harder to prove that erethism was the result of mercury exposure, as seen in the case of the hatters of New Jersey below. Today, although erethism from the hat making industry is no longer an issue, it persists in other high-risk occupations. As a result, methods have been established to measure the mercury exposure of workers more accurately. They include the collection and testing of mercury levels in blood, hair, nails, and urine. Most of these biomarkers have a shorter half-life for mercury (e.g. in blood the half-life is usually only around 2-4 days), which makes some of them better for testing acute, high doses of mercury exposure. However, mercury in urine has a much longer half-life (measured in weeks to months), and unlike the other biomarkers is more representative of the total body burden of inorganic and elemental mercury. This make it the ideal biomarker for measuring occupational exposure to mercury because it is suitable to measuring low, chronic exposure, and specifically exposure to inorganic and elemental mercury (i.e. mercury vapor), which are the two types most likely to be encountered in a higher risk occupation.