Some Minn. newborns to be tested for mercury exposure

As many as 500 newborns will be tested for mercury exposure as part of a $534,000 Minnesota Department of Health biomonitoring project funded by the Legislature.

State health officials say they are primarily targeting populations that are at higher risk for mercury exposure, including Somali, Asian, Latino and African American communities.

The two-year project study will launch this summer. Testing will be open to all families who attend the handful of clinics in the Twin Cities metro area that will be recruited for the project, as researchers also need to study mercury levels among white children.

Jessica Nelson, program coordinator of the department's Environmental Health Tracking and Biomonitoring program, said in part it aims to determine if skin-lightening creams — a well-known source of mercury exposure that has been linked to some populations — are a factor.

"It's one example of a way that folks could be exposed to mercury at higher levels and that could lead to a disparity," she said, "if certain groups are using more of these creams."

Eating contaminated fish also can expose people to mercury, said Nelson, an environmental epidemiologist.

Previous Health Department research revealed that 10 percent of newborns in a Lake Superior basin study had mercury exposures that exceeded state health guidelines, possibly due to greater fish consumption by their mothers.

"But we don't know if these exist in our state population," Nelson said of the two possible causes. "So we're trying to find out if they exist, what they might be and if we can, what might be causing them."

Nelson said parents would have to give permission for their newborn to be screened for mercury. She said testing could begin as soon as this summer.