But these results do show that the tests the team used are sensitive enough to detect very subtle neurological and psychological effects in children, says Davidson. The Rochester findings are in contrast to those by a team from the University of Odense in Denmark. That team recently studied a population in the Faroe Islands, near Iceland, that is exposed to mercury mainly by eating whales as well as fish. Those scientists found that children who were exposed to mercury pre-natally had slight abnormalities in development at age seven. The Rochester scientists feel those findings may be relevant to people who eat whale meat but are not convinced they apply to people eating fish and not whale.
Whale meat contains other toxins and pollutants, like PCBs, and is higher in mercury than fish.
Another key difference is that a community often eats an entire whale in a short period of time, causing a spike in mercury levels that may affect the body differently than lower levels. The White House has organized a meeting for November where the two teams and other scientists are expected to discuss the varying results. Scientists determine a person's exposure to mercury by measuring the content in a strand of hair. By comparing these levels to the results of very sophisticated batteries of tests, scientists try to determine the lowest level that might be harmful. The scientists found no harm from mercury at levels up to 15 ppm, nearly twice the average Seychelles level and about 20 times higher than the average U.S. level.