"One in 10 babies along Minnesota's North Shore are born with unhealthy levels of mercury in their bodies, according to a new report on contamination around Lake Superior, the first to look for the pollutant in the blood of U.S. infants."
"Researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health said they were surprised to find that some of the 1,465 children they tested had very high concentrations. It's the first solid evidence that infants in the state are contaminated by mercury, a pollutant that can cause neurological damage and is distributed around the world, primarily by coal-fired power plants.
'We've never had hard evidence that there were exposures,' said Pat McCann, the research scientist who conducted the study for the Health Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 'This provides that.'
Researchers also found that the Minnesota infants were more likely to have unhealthy mercury levels in their blood than their counterparts in Wisconsin and Michigan. That's probably because their mothers ate more fish, the primary source of mercury in people, health officials said. Babies born in the summer months, when local fish consumption is highest, had more mercury than those born in winter, McCann said."
Josephine Marcotty reports for the Minneapolis Star Tribune February 2, 2012.
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