Rochelle Lamm, Founder & Project Executive
- Seasoned financial services executive who has built multiple billion dollar + corporate enterprises
- Proven fund raising & financial management track record
- Founded a nationally-recognized museum that has flourished for 25+ years
- Author of 4 successful books
- Oldest daughter of Barney & Marion Lamm. A deep personal passion for telling this story
Project Components
The Basic Science of Mercury Pollution
In its elemental form, mercury is a white-silver liquid metal with a mirror-like appearance. It’s stunning to see in this form and looks almost alien. Because of its high surface tension, it beads up into little drops when spilled.
Inorganic mercury that accumulates in water as a result of industrial waste is susceptible to a number of chemical reactions in a process known as biomethylation that transforms raw mercury into methyl mercury (MeHg).
For humans and animals that eat fish, methyl mercury is quicksilver in its most lethal form. It is neurotoxic and absorbed easily by the digestive tract. Once methylated by marine bacteria, MeHg works its way up the food chain in a dangerous process called biomagnification.
As algae eat contaminated bacteria, small fish and shellfish eat the algae, larger fish eat the smaller ones, and so on, the toxins become increasingly concentrated in the bodies of the bigger marine predators. Methyl mercury dissolves in fat cells, stockpiling in the connective and muscle tissue of predatory fish, particularly those with longer life spans. Especially vulnerable to methyl mercury poisoning are developing fetuses, the very young and very old, cats, birds, and human populations that eat large amounts of fish.
Methyl mercury is substantially more damaging to living tissues than inorganic mercury when ingested. Unlike inorganic compounds, MeHg is readily absorbed by the body and has a “bioaccumulative” effect. It has the ability to move relatively swiftly through bodily tissues, building up in vital organs including the placentas of growing fetuses, to the spinal cord and brain. It absolutely ravages the cells of the cerebral cortex. The body does not have an efficient means of ridding itself of orally-ingested methyl mercury, so it wreaks its havoc on our systems long after it’s been consumed.
Both blood and urine can be tested for mercury content, (Hair is the most common & widespread testing protocol.) with normal levels around 20 ppb (parts per billion). However, it’s the amount of quicksilver that reaches key organs is what determines whether or not a person will be poisoned, and that can be difficult to ascertain from a test of bodily fluids. Early symptoms of methyl mercury poisoning include loss of coordination, amnesia, speech and psychological problems, numbness of the fingers and tongue, vision and hearing impairment. Eventually these symptoms will develop into increasingly painful muscle spasms, paralysis, coma, and inevitably destroy the brains and bodies of affected individuals. Fetal and infant MeHg poisoning may cause spinal paralysis, mental retardation and deformities including microcephaly, and death.
