Page 52 - Spring2018

Doctors SOURCES OF MERCURY EXPOSURE from having amalgam fillings that are constantly
Mercury’s use has been so widespread that off-gassing, enjoying a predilection for sushi
rarely want people can get exposed to it without even know- and tuna fish sandwiches and topping these
to look into ing an exposure has happened. For example, if off with a yearly flu shot. This kind of toxicity
mercury mercury gets splashed around somewhere and starts off slowly and builds on itself. Moreover,
poisoning, does not get cleaned up properly, it can keep because mercury poisoning can cause personal-
on poisoning the surrounding area for decades. ity changes, anxiety and depression, it can be
nor does An unwitting person may never know that they mistaken for a psychological problem, with the
medical inhaled a toxic dose of mercury vapor. accompanying odd illnesses characterized as
The biggest source of mercury exposure for “somatization disorders.”
school teach the general public is amalgam fillings, which Admittedly, even when doctors do think to
them how. are 50 percent mercury by weight. Amalgam check for it, mercury poisoning can be difficult

fillings leach mercury vapor into the body, to diagnose. Nonetheless, anyone with a chronic
where it then accumulates. Another route of disease for which nobody knows the cause
exposure is through flu shots and some other should at least consider mercury poisoning as
vaccines, which are loaded with highly toxic a possibility. Mercury poisoning is curable,
ethylmercury in the preservative thimerosal. whereas most chronic diseases are not. It makes
However, even people who have never had a no sense to suffer and doom oneself to taking
thimerosal-containing vaccine or an amalgam a lot of pharmaceutical drugs with terrible side
filling in their life can still be mercury-toxic. effects, when detoxing may be the solution to
This is because they might have been exposed getting better.
to mercury long ago in a school chemistry lab
or on the job, or they may move into a house CHELATION
previously inhabited by a kid who liked to It is possible to remove heavy metals from
smash fluorescent light tubes in the basement. the body through a process called chelation.
An exposure that happened decades ago could (The word “chelation” comes from the Greek
be causing a whole slew of current symptoms word for “claw.”) Chelation is a well understood
that a doctor is unlikely to be able to explain. principle for any chemist, who knows that mer-
Plenty of people have been chronically ill their cury is particularly attracted to thiols or sulfur
whole lives, never having figured out what was found in every cell in the body. A true chelator
really the matter. for mercury has two thiol groups per molecule,
which are spaced the appropriate distance to
A HIDDEN EXPLANATION fit around the mercury ion. When one of these
Dentistry and medicine are the most com- chelator molecules comes along, it attaches to
mon sources of mercury exposure, but doctors the mercury ion, forming a bond that is strong
rarely want to look into mercury poisoning, nor enough to rip the mercury away from wherever
does medical school teach them how. Given it is lodged.
that modern doctors have about fifteen minutes Although the chelator molecule flowing
to meet with each patient, when faced with a along in the bloodstream with its mercury pay-
perplexing case, most doctors will not take the load is destined to be excreted, it unfortunately
time to ask why the person is developing ever does not have a perfect grip, and after a while
more disease conditions and will not even con- it starts to lose its hold. When this happens, the
sider the prospect of mercury toxicity. Instead, mercury will zip off and reattach itself to some
doctors pile diagnosis upon diagnosis, when a other attractive, sulfur-y location. This redis-
single diagnosis—mercury poisoning—might tribution of mercury can cause new damage.
account for everything. The potential for mercury redistribution
Some doctors may be aware of the symp- highlights the importance of differentiating
toms of acute mercury poisoning from an between harmful and beneficial chelation pro-
industrial accident or the like. However, this is tocols. A harmful chelation protocol is one that
distinct from the chronic poisoning that ensues causes preferential redistribution of mercury

50 Wise Traditions SPRING 2018