Tools and Resources

• Eliminating Mercury from Health Care Settings
• Mercury Thermometers and Your Family's Health
• Global Mercury Campaign
• More News About Mercury

Eliminating Mercury in Health Care

Fact Sheets

• The Mercury Problem (pdf)
• Making Medicine Mercury-Free (pdf)
• Thermometer Fact Sheet (pdf)
• Eliminating Mercury Sphygmomanometers (pdf)

Mercury-Free Alternatives

• List of Mercury-Containing Items in Hospitals (pdf)
• Mercury-free Alternatives: Sustainable Hospitals Project

Sample Purchasing Policy

Sample Hospital Mercury-Free Purchasing Policy (pdf)

For additional information on eliminating mercury in the health care setting, see our Go Mercury Free page.

Mercury Thermometers and Your Family's Health

HCWH's brochure about the dangers of mercury fever thermometers is available in the following versions:

• English (pdf)
• Spanish (pdf)
• Portuguese (pdf)
• Haitian (pdf)
• Vietnamese (pdf)
• For Canadians (pdf)

Global Mercury Campaign

To protect the health of communities worldwide, Health Care Without Harm and the World Health Organization are co-leading a global partnership to achieve virtual elimination of mercury-based thermometers and sphygmomanometers over the next decade and their substitution with accurate, economically viable alternatives.

• Visit the Mercury Free Health Care website
• Toward the Tipping Point: WHO-HCWH Global Initiative to Substitute Mercury-Based Medical Devices in Health Care. A Two-Year Progress Report (pdf)
• The Global Movement for Mercury-Free Health Care  (pdf)

More News About Mercury

• Mercury Poisoning, the Hidden Danger in Your Home (doc), a March 12, 2002 article by Dan Fagin from Family Circle Magazine
• American Nurses Association (ANA) announces Position Statement on Mercury in Vaccines
• US survey finds most hospitals eliminating mercury. New survey by the American Hospital Association and H2E reveals a major health care sector trend toward safer mercury-free alternatives. Read the survey report. (pdf)
• The Mercury is Rising: And Activists are Turning up the Heat. Mothering magazine, October 2005
• European Union ministers agree to ban the export of mercury. See press release and support letter from HCWH, 6/27/05
• Kaiser Permanente eliminates mercury, commits to building mercury free hospitals in California (pdf), 6/7/05
• On Earth Day, Women Battle Rising Mercury Hazards: Women's ENews story celebrates work of women heroes of Health Care Without Harm, 4/22/05