Mercury Exposure Through Gold Extraction: Varied Signs and Symptoms of Toxicity

Crossmark: check for updates

Authors

  • Timur S. Durrani
  • Ben Tsutaoka
  • Michael Moeller
  • Robert Harrison

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17140/TFMOJ-1-103

Keywords:

Mercury, Toxicity, Gold Extraction, Varied Signs

Abstract

A 48-year-old male called the poison control center noting his “skin is starting to peel off”. He stated ten days prior, a container fell from a shelf and spilled approximately 100 milliliters of elemental mercury used for gold extraction. Because it was felt there was a still valuable amount of gold in the mercury, he explored the silvery material for any recoverable specs of gold. Once complete, he used a vacuum to remove the mercury, and swept the remainder under a rug.

References

Tomicic C, Vernez D, Belem T, Berode M. Human mercury exposure associated with small-scale gold mining in Burkina Faso. Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 2011; 84(5): 539-546. doi: 10.1007/s00420-011-0615-x

Wu X, Cobbina SJ, Mao G, Xu H, Zhang Z, Yang L. A review of toxicity and mechanisms of individual and mixtures of heavy metals in the environment. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2016; 23(9): 8244-8259. doi: 10.1007/s11356-016-6333-x

Boyd AS, Seger D, Vannucci S, Langley M, Abraham JL, King LE, Jr. Mercury exposure and cutaneous disease. J Am Acad Der-matol. 2000; 43(1 Pt 1): 81-90. doi: 10.1067/mjd.2000.106360

Koirala S, Leinenkugel K. Notes from the field: Acute mer-cury poisoning after home gold and silver smelting--iowa, 2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2015; 64(49): 1365-1356. Web site. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm 6449a4.htm. Accessed July 10, 2016 Toxicol Forensic Med Open J

Downloads

Published

2016-08-09

How to Cite

Timur S. Durrani, Ben Tsutaoka, Michael Moeller, & Robert Harrison. (2016). Mercury Exposure Through Gold Extraction: Varied Signs and Symptoms of Toxicity. Toxicology and Forensic Medicine, 1(1), 18–20. https://doi.org/10.17140/TFMOJ-1-103

Similar Articles

1 2 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.

Most read articles by the same author(s)