About 80 percent of villagers found in mercury poisoning recent studies in Amazon, Peru

According to a new study in indigenous and river communities in the Loreto region of Amazon, Peru, there is a “chronic exposure” for mercury – and experts say that the largest criminal is gold mining in the region.

The results of the test released by the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation at Wake Forest University (CINCIA) in the United States suggest that about 80 percent of the tested people tested at the end of last year had mercury levels above safe border in six communities on the banks of Nanay and Pintuyuku rivers.

“Most of the population is contaminated,” said San Antonio de Nanay’s APU, or leader, Jero Ritegui Devilla, one of the tested communities.

“We ask the authorities to take action on the matter because we are very worried,” he said.

The results showed that 37 percent out of 273 men, women and children were tested, their hair had more mercury levels than 10 ppm (per million part), while compared to just three percent under the 2.2 ppm limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

How did you get so much mercury in the environment? According to scientists and officials, the central factor is a lust for gold.

Gold prices have increased by about 50 percent in the previous year, defeating a gradual record height, and a rich illegal gold mining trade in Amazon has been encouraged, where illegal miners use mercury to remove gold particles from the river.

After extracting gold, these mining operations burn with mercury, transform the toxic metal into vapor that are absorbed by nearby plants, soil and rivers, the major Claudia Vega of the mercury program in Cincia said, said, damaging local nature and biodiversity and increased significant health concerns.

Mercury poisoning is associated with many health issues, including cognitive loss in adults and irreversible developmental delays and difficulties for children and infants in the womb.

Gabriel Berria, the regional coordinator of heavy metals for the local health authority, said it was “very regrettable that the villagers were highly contaminated” and blamed the spread of illegal gold mining for mercury levels in the Amazon rivers.

He said that the Health Authority did not have a budget to test for mercury and recently tested 12 villagers on the health journey dependent on blood and urine samples.

Excess of limit

Cincia said that tests have shown that the average level was 8.41 ppm, which is more than four times the WHO range.

Given that illegal mining in Loreto is quite recently, there is no comprehensive study on its health impact on the local population yet.

But the levels of these initial tests are already more than those in Peru’s Amazon region, which are the most affected by illegal gold mining, Madre Dey Dies, where 2012 tests showed that the average mercury level in most adults was 2.7 ppm.

Communities with Amazon have had to deal with illegal gold mining works for decades, but it has become a growing problem in South America in recent years, as governments have tried to tighten them.

In 2023, Colombia, Brazil and America worked together 19 destroy illegal gold mining In Amazon Renforest. About 114,000 grams of mercury was being dumped every month at these sites, which were run by an international criminal group.

Luis Fernandez, Executive Director of Sinsia and Research Professor at Wake Forest University, said that if illegal mining continues to spread in Loreto, already high mercury level rural mercury can start getting closer to the worst recorded cases of mercury contamination.

It includes the famous case in Japan in the 1950s, where children were born with congenital deformity and neurological disability, dumping the mercury in water supply for decades due to a chemical factory.

Vega of Cincia, who led the study, said that the results showed worrying the “background” level of the mercury in the Loreto Repairian communities.

Vega said that the fish -based diet of the villagers was the biggest vector for Mercury entering their system. However, this particular study cannot completely determine whether mercury came from human-based activities such as sources or illegal gold mining, “said that” many studies agree that the entry of mining into one area increases the environment significantly in the environment. “

Villagers tested for this newly released study were mainly brought in contact with methylmerkari, found by researchers, a highly toxic form that accumulates in the body.

Vega said, “() is the greatest risk for pregnant women and children: methylmerkari can cross the placenta and affect the development of the brain of a developing child.” “This type of exposure is a serious public health concern, even if the affected individuals do not show immediate symptoms.”