Dangerous to Babies

◆ Pregnant women have been warned by Michigan Medicine, the journal of the Michigan State Medical Society, against eating fish that contains even small amounts of mercury. Because mercury tends to concentrate in the fetus, amounts considered safe for adults are dangerous for the fetus. Babies with brain damage have been born to mothers who have eaten fish containing mercury in amounts that did not affect the mothers. Genetic damage can also be caused by mercury in extremely low concentrations.

Mercury in Seals

◆ The livers of Alaskan fur seals have been found to contain 116 times the amount of mercury that is considered safe for human consumption. The seals live in deep water that is fifty miles or more off the Pacific coast of North America. Since they migrate along the coast between the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea and Baja California, they could have picked up the mercury from industrial wastes emptied into the Pacific Ocean. This is another indication of the extent to which man is polluting his environment. As one food company owner in California said: “You can just figure from this that there isn’t any place in the whole world that isn’t contaminated.”

130 Kilometers of Dead Fish

◆ A vast layer of dead fish several meters thick was found in the North Sea. (A meter is slightly longer than three feet.) It stretched for 130 kilometers (about 80 land miles or 70 nautical miles) between Scotland and Denmark. The nautical research vessel, Johan Njort, which discovered the fish traveled for ten hours before passing beyond them. When reporting this in its issue of October 19, 1970, Het Vrije Volk of the Netherlands observed that the fish had been killed by industrial wastes from industries processing synthetic materials. What is especially disturbing is that the fish were found in an area where they breed. Around the world man is ruining his environment.