A child abuse fatality occurs when a child's death is the result of abuse or neglect, or when abuse and/or neglect are contributing factors to a child's death. In the United States, 1,730 children died in 2008 due to factors related to abuse; this is a rate of 2 per 100,000 U.S. children.
The kind of mercury that accumulates to toxic levels in fish is called monomethylmercury, or simply methylmercury, because it has a methyl group, CH3, attached to the mercury atom. The problem is that we donât know where methylmercury comes from.
We asked Jay Schauben, director of the Florida/U.S. Virgin Islands Poison Information Center-Jacksonville, to explain mercury poisoning. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. So, what's mercury? There are three kinds of mercury. Depending on what the exposure is, you could have different symptoms and disease states. Elemental, or metal mercury, is found in thermometers. The problem with that is the inhalation of fumes that come off that mercury. Playing with it and ingesting it is not as toxic.