USU Professor Contributes to Major Study on Dangers of Mercury Pollution
A Utah State University College of Business professor is a member of a panel of experts that has concluded that mercury pollution poses serious global threats to people.
Paul Jakus contributed to one of five supporting papers that have just been published in the international science journal Ambio. He has also signed “The Madison Declaration on Mercury Pollution,” which was also published in Ambio.
The Madison Declaration summarizes a year-long effort by many of the world’s leading mercury scientists, assembled into four conference panels, to review and synthesize mercury science findings. All members of the scientific panels endorsed the declaration, according to the Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant. Here are five of its key findings:
- On average, three times more mercury now falls from the sky than before the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago.
- Unregulated use of mercury in small-scale gold mining is polluting thousands of sites around the world, posing long-term health risks to an estimated 50 million inhabitants of mining regions and contributing more than 10 percent of the mercury in Earth’s atmosphere attributable to human activities.
- Little is known about the behavior of mercury in marine ecosystems and methylmercury contamination of marine fishes, the ingestion of which is the primary way most people at all levels of society worldwide are exposed to this highly toxic form of mercury.
- The health risks posed by mercury-contaminated fish warrant a general warning to the public — especially children and women of childbearing age — to be careful about how much and which fish they eat.
Jakus said he contributed the part of the article that focused on the social and economic consequences of mercury use and pollution. He said he reviewed the studies that have been done on the socioeconomic impacts and costs of mercury pollution and discovered that this is an important area of study in which little has been done to date.
He said the problem of mercury pollution must be addressed globally because emissions from one polluting site can travel globally and eventually affect the health of people in other parts of the world.
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Contact: Steve Eaton, 435-797-8640, cell: 435-760-4884
USU College of Business professor Paul Jakus.
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