[10 years of observation by public health offices in Baden-Württemberg--assessment of human biomonitoring for mercury due to dental amalgam fillings and other sources].

Since 1992, in Baden-Württemberg, ten-year old children have been surveyed in the project "Sentinel Health Departments" to study their exposure to environmental pollutants and possible health effects. In the four study areas 1200 children have been investigated every year initially, since 1996 every second year. The data for mercury in body fluids are reported here.

[Poisoning of a family by a mercury-containing ointment].

Within the framework of a project entitled "Observation by Public Health Offices" we discovered a strikingly high mercury concentration of 30 micrograms in the urine of a 10-year old girl from an Albanian family formerly residing in the Kosovo area in Serbia. We investigated into the cause of this mercury load and found that it was also present in other members of the same family. Symptoms of mercury poisoning were evident to varying degrees in individual family members.