Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Epidemic Intelligence Service, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA.
J Med Toxicol. 2012 Dec;8(4):441-8. doi: 10.1007/s13181-012-0252-0.
Exposure to mercury, a toxic metal, occurs primarily from inhaling mercury vapors or consuming methylmercury-contaminated fish. One third of all anthropogenic mercury emissions worldwide are from artisanal gold mining, which uses mercury to extract gold. Although recent reports suggest that the Madre de Dios region in Peru (with >30,000 artisanal miners) has extensive mercury contamination, residents had never been assessed for mercury exposure. Thus, our objective was to quantify mercury exposure among residents of an artisanal mining town in Madre de Dios and to assess risk factors for exposure.
We conducted a cross-sectional assessment of 103 residents of an artisanal gold mining town in July 2010. Each participant provided a urine and blood sample and completed a questionnaire assessing potential exposures and health outcomes. We calculated geometric mean (GM) urine total mercury and blood methylmercury concentrations and compared log-transformed concentrations between subgroups using linear regression.
One third (34.0 %) of participants were gold miners. All participants had detectable urine total mercury (GM, 5.5 μg/g creatinine; range, 0.7-151 μg/g creatinine) and 91 % had detectable blood methylmercury (GM, 2.7 μg/L; range, 0.6-10 μg/L); 13 participants (13 %) reported having kidney dysfunction or a neurological disorder. Urine total mercury concentrations were higher among people who heated gold-mercury amalgams compared with people who never heated amalgams (p < 0.05); methylmercury concentrations were higher among fish consumers compared with nonfish consumers (p < 0.05).
Our findings suggest that mercury exposure may be widespread in Huaypetue.
暴露于汞（一种有毒金属）主要是通过吸入汞蒸气或食用受甲基汞污染的鱼类。全世界人为汞排放的三分之一来自手工采金，采金过程中使用汞来提取黄金。尽管最近有报告称秘鲁的 Madre de Dios 地区（有超过 30,000 名手工采金者）受到广泛的汞污染，但当地居民从未接受过汞暴露评估。因此，我们的目的是量化 Madre de Dios 一个手工采金镇居民的汞暴露情况，并评估暴露的危险因素。
我们于 2010 年 7 月对一个手工采金镇的 103 名居民进行了横断面评估。每位参与者提供了一份尿液和血液样本，并完成了一份评估潜在暴露和健康结果的问卷。我们计算了尿总汞和血甲基汞的几何均数（GM），并使用线性回归比较了亚组间对数转换浓度。
三分之一（34.0%）的参与者是采金者。所有参与者的尿总汞（GM，5.5μg/g 肌酐；范围，0.7-151μg/g 肌酐）均可检测到，91%的人血甲基汞（GM，2.7μg/L；范围，0.6-10μg/L）可检测到；13 名参与者（13%）报告有肾功能障碍或神经系统疾病。与从不加热汞合金的人相比，加热汞金合金的人尿总汞浓度更高（p<0.05）；与非鱼类消费者相比，鱼类消费者的甲基汞浓度更高（p<0.05）。
我们的研究结果表明，Huaypetue 可能广泛存在汞暴露。
