The Issue: Mercury in Health Care

Mercury pollution is a serious global environmental and human health problem which causes a variety of adverse impacts throughout the world.

In health care settings, mercury may be released from thermometers, blood pressure devices, gastrointestinal and other mercury containing medical products. Fixatives, preservatives, lab chemicals, cleaners and other products may also contain intentionally added mercury which, when discarded to the waste stream, result in environmental contamination. Furthermore, many building products such as thermostats, pressure gauges and switches also contain mercury.

Fortunately, there are safe, cost-effective non-mercury alternatives for nearly all uses of mercury in health care.

Mercury spills in hospitals, clinics and labs expose doctors, nurses, other health care workers and patients to elemental mercury. At room temperature significant amounts of liquid elemental mercury transform to a gas, exposing workers or patients in the area to potentially highly toxic levels.

If discarded as a waste, mercury will eventually make its way into the environment where organisms living in rivers, lakes, or moist earth transform it into highly toxic organic mercury. This type of mercury, which affects nerves and brains at extraordinary low levels, persists and accumulates in animals, fish and the global environment.

Health care plays an important role as one source of mercury. For instance, the United Nations Environment Programme lists various health care-related products and activities as "important sources of anthropogenic releases" of mercury. These include fluorescent lamps, manometers, thermometers and other instruments; dental amalgam fillings; waste treatment and incineration of products containing mercury; landfills; and cremation.

Other recognized sources of mercury in the environment include coal-fired power plant emissions and mercury cell chlor-alkali plants, along with artisanal and industrial gold mining.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNEP have both identified the adverse effects of mercury pollution as a serious global environmental and human health problem. The UNEP Governing Council, representing all UN represented countries, has targeted reducing methyl mercury accumulation in the global environment as a major global priority and in February 2009 agreed to launch negotiations for an international Legally Binding Instrument to control mercury trade.

WHO and Health Care Without Harm have launched a Global Partnership to virtually eliminate mercury in health care in one decade.