Mercury in Human Hair

Rapid digestion and quantitative mercury recovery are obtained when hair is digested in a mixture of nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and potassium permanganate. The studies were done on replicate samples drawn from a large homogeneous hair sample used as a standard reference. The method was applied to hair samples from 80 men and 147 women, long-term residents of Los Alamos, NM, and 99 women, long-term residents of Pasadena, Calif. The geometric mean of the mercury concentration found in the hair samples was: Los Alamos, 18.0 μg/gm (men) and 18.9 μg/gm (women); Pasadena, 25.0 μg/gm. Values ranged from 5 μg/gm to over 100 μg/gm. The mean values found are higher than previously reported. The results suggest that there may be differences in the environmental exposure of the two populations to mercury.