September 03, 2001 - 21:54 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Quicksilver

Most adults, well, at least some of us know that mercury is poisonous. We learned that the practise of throwing mercury at the floor to produce those neat silver flashes was not the greatest form of amusement in existance. Mercury combining with other things produced a poisonous dust that could contaminate areas that are not suspected of contamination.

I remember reading about ladies during World War One who showed up with ?cancerous? lips from their war work, they were the women who painted the numbers and hands on the watches being used by our military with radium. They had been pointing the brushes with their lips so as to make the fine lines needed. I have the sneaking suspicion that because of the war effort and the ha ha necessities of defense ha ha the fact that radium was dangerous was dipomatically ignored.

Out here in the west occasionally one will still read of a family or a group of friends attempting to obtain gold from ore and using in the process mercury which was heated. The heated mercury produces fumes that make the group deathly ill of mercury poisoning.

The old bit of contempt for the material or process due to familiarity with the same leads to too many accidents or ailments known to man. Three Mile Island I think, is one instance of carelessness due to the disregard of all warnings because, "What the heck, I been workin' with this for years and nothin's gonna happen if I ignore the symptoms of potential disaster." "Heck, that safety guard doesn't need to be there for me, I know what I am doing." "I'm gonna jack old Betsy up and pull the crankcase pan -- don't need no blocks or nothin'."

But over the period of time we have all felt that we were proceeding with all due caution, and truly were but, because some things had unknown effects and caused problems people got sick or died. That was bad, but the smoke screening by companies, corporations and even our government keeping the facts from the public until more misery accumulated.

Out at Rocky Flats for instance there is a great amount of finger pointing toward the next arm of the government or corporation who was guilty of allowing the workers there to inhale beryllium dust from the machining of triggers for atomic weapons. It appeared to me that all parties concerned stood in a giant circle, turned to the right and pointed the finger of blame to the next in the circle -- after awhile turning to the left and doing the same. I think that process is still going on. Sounds to me that in a effort to build enough atomic power to overcome attack by a foreign power during the cold war the fact things like beryllium poisoning was disregarded. Now the supplier of beryllium is laying the blame on the contractor running Rocky Flats, and there has been more than one contractor out there. I had an old machinist's handbook that delineated the poisonous properties of beryllium which dated back before the Second World War.

The rub is that it seems as if this is a hot potato and might hurt someone's pocket book, while the victim's of disinformation die off one by one.

The care of people who mined uranium or handled the material during the panic of a possiible Red world attack, now they are seemingly being picked over by the government as to who is eligible for compensation.

Asbestos ? Has damn good insulating properties, however that dust produces lung cancer in many people exposed to it. I wonder how many years the corporations dealing in asbestos products knew that it could produce cancer in people working with it ?

The other night in an entry of mine I was discussing the mercury content of Mercurochrome and Merthiolate. Stressed was the Mercurial content of Merthiolate 49% as the active ingredient, it stung I guess because of the alcohol content of the remainder of the combination. In milling around the net I found out that thimerosal was the mercurial ingredient of Merthiolate. I haven't seen Mercurochrome or Merthiolate on drug store shelves for ages.

In the process of using a search engine before I shut its engine down it came up with the bit that various scientific organizations were doing studies on the possibility of that thing, that thimerosal, was causing various ailments among people because it is an ingredient of some vaccines, some of which are used on children.

In our Sunday paper I read that there being lawsuits brought against vaccine makers, claiming that thimerosal content of vaccines received by their kids caused their autism.

The Boston Globe reported Saturday the the lawsuit is the second of at least 15 being prepared by a team of lawyers from both the east and west coast. And of course there will be more, some justified - some not. Not even yet established that the kids the lawsuits are being fought for were autistic from a vaccination. At this time the lawsuit alleges that seven vaccine manfacturers and five companies that produced thimerosal failed to test the vaccines properly and warn parents about the risks of thimerosal.

Somewhere along the line thimerosal has long been touted by the Food and Drug Administration as being safe.

The fact that studies of autism linked to thimerosal have and possibly are still being run means something to me. There must be pretty damn good evidence that some cases of autism are produced by thimerosal. The very fact that many of these vaccines are used on people too young to communicate with others, could lead the defense to say that the autism was genetic.

I guess the thing that bugs me is the continued use of things containing thimerosal and or anything with a mercury based composition. Makes me wonder about just how long did the makers of carbontetrachloride know of its poisonous properties before taking it off the general market ? How long before it became general knowledge did the mine owners know of silicosis and what caused it before any measures were taken to prevent it ?

What are we using and consuming or being injected with that will cause our deaths or disabilities in our later life?

Makes me wonder if one of the ingredients of my yearly flu shot has as an ingredient, Quicksilver . . . . . . .

Blog