Commentary

Do recent data from the Seychelles Islands alter the conclusions of the NRC Report on the toxicological effects of methylmercury?

Alan H Stern^1,2 , Joseph L Jacobson³ , Louise Ryan^4,5 and Thomas A Burke⁶

¹  Bureau for Risk Analysis, Division of Science, Research, and Technology, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, 401 East State Street, 1^st Floor, PO Box 409, Trenton, NJ, 08625, USA

²  Division of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Public Health, 683 Hoes Lane West, Room 305, PO Box 9, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

³  Department of Psychology, College of Science, Wayne State University, 235 Psychology Building, 71 West Warren, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA

⁴  Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115 USA

⁵  Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney Street, Mayer 219, Boston, MA 02115 USA

⁶  Department of Health Policy and Management, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 634 North Broadway, Room 484, Baltimore, MD, USA

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Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 2004, 3:2doi:10.1186/1476-069X-3-2

Published:	30 January 2004

Abstract

In 2000, the National Research Council (NRC), an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, released a report entitled, "Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury." The overall conclusion of that report was that, at levels of exposure in some fish- and marine mammal-consuming communities (including those in the Faroe Islands and New Zealand), subtle but significant adverse effects on neuropsychological development were occurring as a result of in utero exposure. Since the release of that report, there has been continuing discussion of the public health relevance of current levels of exposure to Methylmercury. Much of this discussion has been linked to the release of the most recent longitudinal update of the Seychelles Island study. It has recently been posited that these findings supercede those of the NRC committee, and that based on the Seychelles findings, there is little or no risk of adverse neurodevelopmental effects at current levels of exposure. In this commentary, members of the NRC committee address the conclusions from the NRC report in light of the recent Seychelles data. We conclude that no evidence has emerged since the publication of the NRC report that alters the findings of that report.