I once read a story about an idiot who attempted to cleanse the gene pool by injecting 3 mL of elemental mercury intravenously. He almost succeeded; therefore, we could use this example to prove that mercury is indeed harmful to humans. Perhaps there should be federal law prohibiting injection of elemental mercury intravenously. Certainly he would have been successful had he attempted a high-velocity 230-grain cranial injection of elemental lead.

However, that one issue aside, hysterical claims by activists' and journalists' about mercury poisoning in the United States are based mostly on contamination and health data collected from foreign sources, such as the Faroe Islands or Minamata Bay. Of course these propagandist fail to mention that, and the fact that all cases of mercury poisoning are not from inorganic element mercury or cinnabar but rather from a poisonous organic mercury compound called methylmercury. Another issue the fear-mongers fail to explain is that the Minamata Bay disaster was caused by the Chisso Corporation dumping organic methylmercury (not mercury) into the bay which killed all of the fish and poisoned thousand of people.

Certainly we don't want to purposely dump mercury into our environment because some of it can become methylmercury and methylmercury can bioaccumulate in the food chain and cause poisoning. However, cinnabar (mercury ore and a Chinese medicine for long life and good health) and native mercury (natural occurring element mercury) exist naturally in huge quantities in the Clear Creek Management area. In fact this area is thought to contain the world's fourth largest deposit of mercury ore.

Summary:

• Elemental Mercury is not poisonous.
• Methylmercury is poisonous.
• Methymercury is not found in the Clear Creek Management Area or at Idria.