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Posted by: Will1313 1 year ago
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Will13131 year ago
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Kind of like when they sent my kid's entire school home for the rest of the day because a teacher broke an old mercury thermometer in a closet.
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yep and given the right temp.. it can evaporate into the air and your kid could have inhaled it....
better safe than sorry...
your comment shows just exactly how uninformed you are...
Metallic mercury is a hazardous chemical that can cause serious health problems. Children (especially very young children) and fetuses are most vulnerable. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), part of the U.S. Public Health Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Exiting ATSDR are jointly issuing an alert to the general public. There is a continuing pattern of metallic mercury exposure in children and teenagers and in persons using certain folk medicines or participating in certain ethnic or religious practices.
It is important for the general public to understand that either short-term or long-term exposures to metallic mercury can lead to serious health problems. Human exposure to metallic mercury occurs primarily from breathing contaminated air. Other forms of mercury can be absorbed by drinking contaminated water, eating food (usually fish containing mercury), and from skin contact. At high levels, metallic mercury can cause effects on the nervous system and the developing fetus. Other forms of mercury can damage other organs. Even at low levels, metallic mercury can cause health problems. Metallic mercury exposure can cause harm before symptoms arise. Once released into the environment, mercury is very hard to clear up. If it is left unattended where exposures can occur, it can have dangerous effects on human health.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/alerts/970626.html-
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Will13131 year ago
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that would explain your mental problems.. thanks for clearing it up....
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anyone that thinks that mercury is harmless is simply not facing reality..
and you'd have been the first in line to sue the school .. the teacher.. the school board and anyone else you could find if you kid had gotten sick.....-
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amazed1 year ago
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I didn't suggest that children SHOULD play with mercury, I am stating a fact that children DID play with mercury in the past. Not every day, not as a constant and favorite toy, but when thermometers broke or a bit of mercury came around one way or another, yeah, children (and even some teachers) used to handle it.
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It rolls around in your hand, and acts like not much of any other substance. It gives a weird tingly feeling and is generally kind of cool. It also eats gold -- an indication to those who DO play with it and have on rings, that maybe it's not such a good thing to play with.
I would be willing to be that the vast majority of people over the age of 45-50 have played with mercury at some point in their life.
Now, would I let my children play with it? Obviously not, but one broken thermometer in a closet is not going to kill an entire school or even have any adverse effects -- especially if the stuff is cleaned up.
Use a little common sense. -
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