UPM researchers use probabilistic models to assess health risks of mercury

Published on November 14, 2014 at 5:26 AM · No Comments Researchers from the UPM have characterized the health risks derived from the usage of mercury in artisanal gold mining in Colombia through probabilistic models. The tools developed by researchers from the Environmental Geochemistry Research and Engineering Laboratory (LI2GA) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) have given evidences of their quantitative efficiency to problems about occupational and environmental exposures to pollutants. These tools will allow researchers to categorize risk situations and to give priority to the intervention performances, especially in regions with limited financial resources where is more complex to conduct rigorous clinical studies. Artisanal gold mining is common in Latin-American regions, Africa and Southeast Asia where there are large socio-economic inequalities and active or abandoned goldfields. This activity is performed outside of the workplace health and safety regulations. Therefore, miners can be at risk due to possible accidents during the exploitation of deposits and due to chronic exposure to mercury. This risk of mercury poisoning is not just limited to workers but also the entire population of the mining communities. Mercury is a toxic element that can cause neurological disorders when is continuously in contact with the organism, either through elemental mercury by inhalation or consumption of fish contaminated with mercury. Mercury from artisanal gold mining is used to concentrate gold in an amalgam of both elements. Later, it is burned in order to rid of the mercury and to recover the gold. During this amalgamation process, […]

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