Mercury (element) polluted water. They arise by a process known as biomethylation. Mercury is used primarily for the manufacture of industrial chemicals or for electrical and electronic applications. It is used in some thermometers, especially ones which are used to measure high temperatures. A still increasing amount is used as gaseous mercury in fluorescent lamps, while most of the other applications are slowly phased out due to health and safety regulations and is in some applications replaced with less toxic but considerably more expensive Galinstan alloy. Mercury and its compounds have been used in medicine, although they are much less common today
Substantial equivalence testing may be conducted, leading to a final safety assessment. Substantial equivalence is the underlying principle in GM food safety assessment for a number of national and international agencies, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization. The concept of comparing genetically modified foods to traditional foods as a basis for safety assessment was first introduced as a recommendation during the 1990 Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on biotechnology and food safety (a scientific