Health, environmental concerns are hustling their extinction
It was one of Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit's most famous inventions, in 1714. But after nearly 300 years on the market, the still-common mercury thermometer now appears headed for extinction.
While many Maryland residents probably still have them in their medicine cabinets, or on their walls, the retail sale of mercury thermometers has been banned in Maryland since 2002 because of mercury's hazards as a powerful neurotoxin.
There are similar bans or restrictions in at least 17 other states, with more such legislation pending elsewhere, according to the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse.
Mercury thermometers are also on their way out in a wide variety of industries, along with a long list of other measuring devices, thermostats and switches that rely on mercury components.
And beginning March 1, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Gaithersburg, will no longer provide calibration services for manufacturers and users of mercury-in-glass thermometers — a critical service it had provided to American industry since 1901.
NIST and the Environmental Protection Agency are taking other regulatory steps that would limit the use of those mercury-based products, and provide alternatives.
"Due to elemental mercury's high toxicity, EPA seeks to reduce potential mercury exposures to humans and the environment by reducing the overall use of mercury-containing products, including mercury-containing thermometers," said EPA spokesman Dale Kemery.
FULL STORY HE:E :http://www.courant.com/health/connecticut/bs-hs-mercury-thermometer-20110222,0,524479.story
It's still healthy enough to add to Vaccines though??......even though you are then injecting it straight into the blood stream??
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