Mercury-Free Healthcare By 2020 Initiative Aims To End Mercury Exposure From Medical Measuring Devices

Mercury Vapor

Mercury Vapours: Mercury vapours are toxic and cannot be seen with the naked eye. Nevertheless, they do create a shadow when exposed to a short wave ultraviolet light in a fluorescent background. Authors: Mercury Vapor Experiment, Bowling Green State University, Ohio EPA and Rader Environmental Mercury Collection Program

Mercury: Photograph courtesy of Health Care Without Harm from its publication “Toward the Tipping Point”

WHO and Health Care Without Harm have joined forces to launch a new initiative to get mercury removed from all medical measuring devices by 2020 by ending the manufacture, import and export of these devices and by supporting the deployment of accurate, affordable, and safer non-mercury alternatives.

The initiative Mercury-Free Healthcare by 2020, launched on 11 October 2013 to mark the signing of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, calls for the phase out of mercury fever thermometers and blood pressure devices containing mercury. This will be done by ending the manufacture, import and export of these devices and by supporting the deployment of accurate, affordable, and safer non-mercury alternatives.

Mercury and its various compounds are of global public health concern and have a range of serious health impacts including brain and neurological damage especially among the young. Others include kidney damage and damage to the digestive system. 

Mercury-free health care is increasingly becoming the status quo in many countries.: Photograph courtesy of Health Care Without Harm from its publication “Toward the Tipping Point” 

Minamata Convention on Mercury

While the Minamata Convention allows countries to continue to use mercury in medical measuring devices until 2030 under certain special circumstances, WHO and the nongovernmental organization Health Care Without Harm believe that the potential negative health consequences from mercury are so great that all should strive to meet the main target date of 2020 set out in the Convention.

“With the signing of the Minamata Convention on Mercury we will be going a long way in protecting the world forever from the devastating health consequences from mercury,” says WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “Mercury is one of the top ten chemicals of major public health concern and is a substance which disperses into and remains in ecosystems for generations, causing severe ill health and intellectual impairment to exposed populations.”

Blueprint for country action

The Convention provides a blueprint for country action to eliminate the most harmful forms of mercury use, reduce mercury emissions from industry, promote mercury free methods, protect children and women of childbearing age from mercury exposure, and take steps to improve workers health and well-being.

“WHO will tackle the critical areas of concern of mercury exposure and we will work with governments to ensure that they can meet their obligations under the Convention, especially those in the areas of healthcare,” says Dr Maria Neira, WHO Director for Public Health and Environment. “This calls for the phase out of mercury fever thermometers and sphygmomanometers (a device for measuring blood pressure) in health care under the Mercury-Free Healthcare by 2020.”

“The tireless and committed work of nurses, doctors, and hospital leaders, along with NGOs, government and UN officials, has shown that switching to mercury-free health care is accurate, affordable, and also inevitable,” said Josh Karliner, HCWH Director of Global Projects. “The treaty enshrines this inevitability.” 

• Phase out mercury topical antiseptics and mercury skin-lightening cosmetics;
• Develop public health strategies to address the health impacts of mercury use in    artisanal and small-scale gold mining;
• Develop measures to “phase down” the use of dental amalgam;
• Encourage health information exchange, public awareness-raising and health            research.

Mercury is toxic to human health, posing a particular threat to the development of the child in utero and early in life.

The Minamata Convention was adopted on 10 October 2013 at Kumamoto in Japan on the occasion of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Minamata Convention on Mercury.  The Minamata Convention on Mercury is now open for signature by Member States and regional economic integration organizations at Kumamoto at the United Nations Headquarters in New York until 9 October 2014.

This news is from HCWH and WHO 11 October 2013, published on the Horizon International Solutions Site on 14 October 2013.

For more information about the Diplomatic Conference, please see http://www.unep.org/hazardoussubstances/MinamataConvention/DiplomaticCon...

For a list of the countries that have signed the Convention so far, please see (from 10 October 2013) www.mercuryconvention.org. 

For more information about the effects of mercury, please see http://www.unep.org/publications/contents/pub_details_search.asp?ID=6281

Download Report:   Toward the Tipping Point: WHO-HCWH Global Initiative to Substitute Mercury-Based Medical Devices in Health Care. A Two-Year Progress Report  (pdf)

Related articles on the Horizon International Solutions Site:

New Global Treaty Cuts Mercury Emissions and Releases, Sets Up Controls On Products, Mines and Industrial Plants, http://www.solutions-site.org/node/1135

Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Environment: Challenges, Interventions and Preventive Measures, http://www.solutions-site.org/node/532 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Issues First National Standards for Mercury Pollution from Power Plants, available at http://www.solutions-site.org/node/557  

EPA Sets First National Standard to Reduce Mercury Emissions from Gold Production available at http://www.solutions-site.org/node/477 

U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Sets First National Limits to Reduce Mercury and Other Toxic Emissions from Cement Plants available at http://www.solutions-site.org/node/445

140 Countries Agree to Negotiate Treaty to Control Toxic Heavy Metal Mercury (20 February 2009) available at http://www.solutions-site.org/node/350

* Related coverage:

Chapter “Global Substitution of Mercury-Based Medical Devices in the Health Sector,” by Joshua Karliner and Peter Otis for of Health Care Without Harm, in Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Environment: Challenges, Interventions, and Preventive Measures, written by 59 experts, published by Wiley-Blackwell in collaboration with Horizon International. 

Book CoverBook Cover This article is presented as part of the Supplementary Material that accompanies the book Water and Sanitation Related Diseases and the Environment: Challenges, Interventions, and Preventive Measures, a Wiley-Blackwell publication in collaboration with Horizon International, written by 59 experts. Janine M. H. Selendy, Horizon International Founder, Chairman, President and Publisher, is Editor.

The book’s 4 hours of multimedia DVDs are included with an abundance of multidisciplinary resources, covering diverse topics from anthropology to economics to global health are being distributed free of charge by the Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University. 

These will be sent to thousands of libraries, organizations, and institutions in 138 less-wealthy countries and will be invaluable additions to library materials for use in classrooms and communities, by researchers and government decision-makers. 

Map of countriesMap of countries

As of 17 September 2013, these resources have been made available in over 1,200 entities across 60 countries.

Read more: PDF Version is available at http://solutions-site.org/press/release1july2013.pdf