Talk:Methylmercury

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[edit] Article renaming

I moved this article here from methyl mercury in what I thought would be an uncontroversial move. For what it's worth, I wasn't just taking part in some sort of Holy Quest to change the spacing; I was also here to clean the stub a bit. It seems that the move has prompted rather more discussion than I expected, so here is my reasoning.

  • Methylmercury is in line with IUPAC nomenclature standards. (PDF.)
  • Methylmercury is more often used on the WWW, based on its Google results:
  • On PubMed, methylmercury draws 3273 hits, versus 775 for methyl mercury.

As far as I know, there's no US versus British English issue here, so I shouldn't be treading on those sensitive toes. I changed the wikilinks in articles with methyl mercury because that's standard practice after renaming an article; I didn't use piped links because I didn't expect any controversy. Frankly, I still don't see the harm in the change. If someone feels this should go to RfC for further consultation, that's fine. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 18:19, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

One more thought—this name is also consistent with the name of our existing article at dimethylmercury. Cheers, TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 21:13, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Expert review is needed

Methylmercury is formed mainly by a process called biomethylation. which is carried out by sulfate reducing bacteria, not as written in the article --Tarawneh 06:32, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unexplained reversion

I don't understand why the anonymous 205.208.227.31 removed the 3 JAN 06 material contributed by 160.93.167.240. The former person seems to have done some good stuff elsewhere in Wikipedia, so this was not vandalism. However I thought that the new material was valuable. I would like to see comment on this, especially from 160* so that I or someone more knowledgible could make a decision about reinstating what was removed. Myron 23:47, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

  • As the reversion remains unexplained, I have restored the material contributed by 160.93.167.240 and have reorganized it and added some sources. The article still calls for wikification and some more sources. Myron 02:23, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frequency of ill effects

Cut from article:

Several studies indicate that methylmercury is linked to subtle developmental deficits in children exposed in-utero such as loss of IQ points, and decreased performance in tests of language skills, memory function and attention deficits. Methylmercury exposure in adults has also been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease including heart attack. Some evidence also suggests that methylmercury can cause autoimmune effects in sensitive individuals. However, to date, methylmercury has not been linked to any specific neurologic or autoimmune disease. Although there is no doubt that methylmercury is toxic in several respects, including through exposure of the developing fetus, there is still some controversy as to the levels of methylmercury in the diet that can result in adverse effects.

This paragraph comes right after a passage which says this sort of thing is rarely seen. But the way it's worded implies than studies have found lots of this sort of thing happening.

Repair strategy:

  • Say that IF too much methylmercury gets in the uterus THEN children will suffer brain problems.
  • Explain where and when this has occurred. Like, any place other than Japan several decades ago?

(We also need to address mercury in fish (trace amounts are a hazard) vs. not eating fish (losing the nutrients may be a hazard too).)

I'm proposing an article on Mercury toxicity to address all of this:

Please help! --Uncle Ed 02:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, now I see why you added the redlink to the see also (I reverted one, I believe that see also sections should not contain redlinks, looks strange, but well). Yes, I think this is a good idea, thouhg I believe that covering it in mercury poisoning is also OK (making mercury toxicity a redirect there), these subjects are closely related. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
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