Keeping Mercury away from adults

Biomedical evidence of end organ disease effects

Alan D. Clark, M.D.  
February 1, 2005

The following white paper will demonstrate the emerging science that has documented the association between mercury exposure and neurodegenerative diseases in adults. For this reason, NoMercury.org is committed to removing further exposure to adults by the removal of mercury from all vaccines. 

Mercury is directly toxic to the heart.  Viranen and colleagues from the Research Institute of Public Health in Finland, published "Mercury, Fish Oils, and Risk of Acute Coronary Events and Cardiovascular Disease, Coronary Heart Disease, and All-Cause Mortality in Men in Eastern Finland" in November of 2004. They concluded that high content of mercury in hair may be a risk factor for acute coronary events and CVD, CHD, and all-cause mortality in middle-aged eastern Finnish men and that mercury may also attenuate the protective effects of fish on cardiovascular health. (Exhibit A)(Web Link). Indeed, the the National Library of Medicine's TOXNET database, the search terms for "Mercury and Heart Disease" bring up over 94 articles on this subject alone (Example).

Mercury is also an emerging factor in the development of age related neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and this is correlated with the recent finding of the Apo-E and its relationship to the development of AD. (Exhibit B) (Web Link).

Dr. Boyd Haley, Professor and Chairman of the department of chemistry at the University of Kentucky is perhaps one of the world’s most pre-eminent authorities on mercury and its toxicity.  In a recent paper published in a Norwegian medical journal he concluded that the relationship of the APO-E gene to Alzheimer’s disease could be explained by the genetic susceptibility to AD that is expressed through the APO-E gene family.  Specifically, a reduction of APO-E gene types carrying cysteines decreases the ability to remove mercury and other thiol-reactive toxicants from the cerebrospinal fluid.  This increases brain exposure to thiol-reactive toxicants and the risk of AD.  The full text of this paper is attached (Exhibit C) (Web Link). 

Dr. Haley was also the scientist who first discovered the use of photo-affinity labeling for DNA.  His work found abnormalities in AD patients using this technique that could only be explained by mercury toxicity on the neuronal tubulin molecules.  An easy to understand audio-video presentation by Dr. Haley on this topic can be heard online here (Web link).  

4) In April of 2004, Sharon Begley, science writer for the Wall Street Journal wrote two articles of interest in regards to AD. On April 9, 2004, the headline appeared: IS ALZHEIMER'S FIELD BLOCKING RESEARCH INTO OTHER CAUSES?  Ms Begley looked at the current state of research into Alzheimer's disease and noted that for two decades, Alzheimer's research has been dominated by 'amyloid orthodoxy,' the assumption that toxic amyloid proteins are somehow the key (or cause) of AD. At the same time, critics in this field (such as Dr. Haley) have contended that powerful people in the field, committed to the amyloid hypothesis, are blocking research into alternative approaches.  Dr. Haley has publicly stated (see video lecture) that his own research into AD was de-funded by NIH when he reported and published finding high levels of mercury in the brains of AD patients.   

Less than a week later, Ms. Begley wrote: SCIENTISTS WORLD-WIDE BATTLE A NARROW VIEW OF ALZHEIMER'S CAUSE in the Wall Street Journal.  In this article (Exhibit D) (Web Link), she followed research by neurobiologists Glenda Bishop and Stephen Robinson of Monash University (Australia) which contradicted dominant amyloid theory on cause of AD.  This study was published in Journal of Neural Transmission and reported that rat brains injected with beta-amyloid protein suffered no more cell death that brains injected with salt water. (Exhibit E)(Web Link).

On August 6, 2004, she completed her series with the article entitled: FEVERED DEBATE OVER ALZHEIMER'S ORIGINS CAUSES DEEP DIVISIONS in which she reported on the July 2004 9th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease that revealed an ideological split over the role of amyloid proteins in the disease (Exhibit F)(Web Link) 

The following is an email that I sent to her regarding this last article:

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Dear Ms. Begley,

Your article, “Fevered Debate Over Alzheimer’s Origins Causes Deep Divisons” in the August 6, 2004 issue of the WSJ was most informative.  There is also some additional information on this debate which has been surprisingly ignored. 

Mercury has also been strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other chronic neurological conditions.  Beginning in 1988, researchers reported that mercury was found at elevated levels in the brains of the nucleus basalis of the cadaveric brains of Alzheimer’s patients.¹  Further studies verified elevated mercury levels in brains of AD patients.²  When rats were exposed to standard elemental mercury vapor (similar to levels documented from the oral cavities of humans with dental amalgams), Pendergrass and Haley ³ found that lesions were present in the rodent brain similar to those seen in AD victims.  Indeed, Dr. Haley, one of the world’s premier mercury researchers and Professor and Chairman of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky, discovered that the neurofibrillary tangles seen in the AD brains could be exactly produced by mercury addition to neurons in culture. Other confirmations soon followed.  Dr. Haley received grant funding from NIH for years to develop the technique of photo-affinity labeling of DNA which was the technique he used to determine the mercury/AD connection. When he reported his remarkable findings to the NIH, his funding stopped.

Dr. Haley would be glad to speak with you further on this.  To hear a recent lecture he gave on the subject (streaming media), please click here. 

If this research is true, why is the NIH frightened to pursue it?  Do we risk the health of millions of older citizens by ignoring this potential link?  These questions demand further investigation.

 Alan Clark, M.D.
www.NoMercury.org

 References:

     1)  Thompson et al. Regional brain trace elemental studies in Alzheimer’s disease. Neurotoxicology. 1988;9(1):1-8
2)   Cornett CR, Markesbery WR, Lehmann WD. Imbalances of trace elements related to oxidative damage in Alzheimer’s disease brain. Neurotoxicology. 1988;19(3):339-     346.
3)      Pendergrass JC, Haley BE, Vimy MJ, Winfield SA, Lorscheider FL. Mercury vapor inhalation inhibits binding of GTP to tubulin in rat brain: similarity to a molecular lesion in Alzheimer disease brain. Neurotoxicity. 1997;18(2): 315-324.

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Dr. Haley’s pivotal role and theory of AD has been expertly summarized in a recent lay journal publication for seniors (Exhibit G) (Web Link).

It is clear from this research that removal of mercury sources (as in vaccinations) is an excellent public health measure to prevent the epidemic of age related neurodegenerative diseases.

 Alan Clark, M.D.

Co-Founder, NoMercury.org