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Uncounted Numbers Urban Exposures, Chemical Concentrations, and the Question of Race
Thanks to years of public health campaigns and plenty of media coverage, many people are aware that certain types of fish are contaminated by mercury. Mercury released through emissions from coal-burning power plants and municipal and medical waste incinerators takes to the air and is carried along, sometimes for miles, before settling in soil or water. The inorganic mercury is absorbed into microorganisms in the water and converted to an organic substance, methylmercury, which is then consumed by fish. Big fish like shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish eat small, contaminated fish and accumulate high concentrations of toxic methylmercury. Both white (albacore) and canned light tuna contain mercury, too, with a January 2011 investigation from Consumer Reports finding that “children and women of childbearing age can easily consume more mercury than the Environmental Protection Agency considers advisable simply by eating one serving [about 2.5 ounces] of canned white tuna or two servings of light tuna per week.”1
13 Women who eat large quantities of such fish, both during and after pregnancy, can readily pass that mercury on to infants through umbilical cord blood 2 and through their breast milk. 3 Pregnant women exposed to methylmercury from fish—particularly canned fish—have shown a greater likelihood for giving birth prematurely, 4 and a child born with low birth weight (4.4 pounds or less), such as happens when babies are born premature, is five times as likely to be diagnosed with autism as a child born at normal weight.5 Recognizing that mercury from seafood “may harm an unborn baby or young child’s developing nervous system,” the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has advised women to limit their consumption of certain fish while pregnant.6 Knowing of these dangers, many women choose not to eat fish high in mercury during pregnancy. But most populations exposed to toxic chemicals are not made aware that their food, water, or air could be poisonous. The likelihood of chemical exposure is deeply intertwined with a community’s socioeconomic status; factories that spew pollution are often allowed to operate with impunity alongside poor communities whose residents aren’t given the choice to opt out by simply avoiding contaminated items. An early example of what can occur when factories pollute unchecked happened in Minamata, Japan, a small village of rice farmers and fishermen who depended on fish and shellfish from the Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea. In 1907 the Chisso Corporation opened a carbide plant on the shores of the bay. The townspeople initially welcomed the factory with the hope that it would bring economic prosperity. In 1930 the Chisso factory turned its attentions to the production of materials that could be used for Japan’s growing military needs—specifically acetaldehyde, or ethanol, a needed energy source for a country without its own oil supplies, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which was used for