title: Methylmercury in the hair of subsistence food users in a rural Alaskan village.
abstract: The level of methylmercury in the hair of 16 rural Alaskan subsistence food users from Napakiak, a small Yup'ik Eskimo village on the Kuskokwim River in southwest Alaska, was assessed. A non-subsistence population of 20 non-Yup'ik adults from the urban interior city of Fairbanks was used as a comparison group. The Napakiak Yup'ik had a mean methylmercury concentration in hair of 1.45 ppm with a range of 0.32-4.00 ppm, while the Fairbanks population had a mean concentration of 0.19 ppm with a range of 0.03 to 0.43 ppm in their hair. Comparison with an earlier study by Galster (1976) from this region, suggests that no increase in exposure to mercury has occurred in subsistence food users. The methylmercury levels in hair in the rural village population, although higher than the urban group, are well below the World Health Organization (WHO) safety limit of 10 ppm.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Arctic Biology, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775, USA.
authors.forename: Roger F N
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Rothschild
authors.forename: Lawrence K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Duffy
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000413:Alaska / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005506:Food Contamination; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D004930:Inuit; D008297:Male; D008630:Mercury Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008767:Methylmercury Compounds / Q000032:analysis*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012424:Rural Population
chemical_list: D008767:Methylmercury Compounds