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Josephs wants the U.S. to stop exporting mercury

HARRISBURG, July 3 – State Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Phila., announced that a concurrent resolution she sponsored to urge the president to ban the export of mercury was approved by the state House today.

Mercury poisoning can damage the central nervous system, and long-term exposure can result in brain damage or death. High levels of mercury are especially harmful to pregnant women and young children.

Josephs said that the United States is a net exporter of mercury, and much of those exports go to developing nations. She said that if the U.S. stopped providing mercury to the rest of the world, developing nations would reduce the instances of mercury poisoning and thereby improve the health of their populations.

"Mercury is very harmful to pregnant women; as many as 630,000 U.S. children are born each year at risk of neurological problems related to mercury. If we don't want our children to be exposed to mercury, why would we allow children in other countries to come in contact with it?" Josephs said.

"President Bush needs to recognize that we are putting innumerable people at risk worldwide by providing them all with a poison," Josephs said. "What's poisonous here is just as poisonous across the ocean, and there's no reason for us to harm innocent children around the world."

Josephs' resolution would ask the president to ban the sale, distribution and transfer of mercury by any level of government or any private entity in the country. It would also urge him to establish a storage program to stow away any excess mercury in the United States, rather than selling it to other countries.

Mercury is used in industrial chemicals but also occurs naturally in fish. Fish that are higher on the food chain, like tuna, shark and swordfish, contain more mercury because the predator absorbs the mercury of the smaller fish.

The resolution now moves to the Senate for consideration.