revised final - Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry ...

MERCURY 453
5. POTENTIAL FOR HUMAN EXPOSURE
Commercial artists and crafts people are another group that is also at risk of mercury exposure from a variety
of professional arts and crafts materials and techniques (Grabo 1997). This author reported that mercury was
a hazard to commercial artists using mercury-based pigments in airbrush painting, brush paintings, and in
pastels via pigment in chalk dusts. The author concluded that occupational health professions should be
aware of toxic nature of the materials used by artists, whether they are employed in industry, self-employed,
or are hobbyists.
Chemists are another group at risk of occupational exposure as a result of activities involving the synthesis
of mercury compounds or the analysis of environmental or biological samples containing mercury residues.
Methylmercury compounds are still used in laboratory-based research, and so the possibility of occupational
exposure remains. Junghans (1983) reviewed the toxicity of methylmercury compounds associated with
occupational exposures attributable to laboratory use. Most recently, a poisoning incident was reported from
a single acute exposure to dimethylmercury (Blayney et al. 1997). The analytical chemist involved was
exposed to approximately 0.1–0.5 mL of dimethylmercury spilled on disposable platex gloves during a
transfer procedure in a fume hood, while preparing a mercury nuclear magnetic resonance standard. Blood
analyses 5 months after the exposure incident revealed a whole blood mercury concentration of 4,000 µg/L
(ppb), which is 80 times the usual toxic threshold (50 µg/L) and 400 times the normal mercury blood range
(