Let’s talk about toxicity, specifically the toxicity of drinking water.

The LD50 of water is estimated to be about 90ml/kg. This means that half of people who
weigh 50KG would die if they drank 4,500 ml of water within a short period of time. This
equates to a 110lb person drinking 4.5 litres of water in 30 minutes or less.

Drinking too much water can result in a condition called water toxicity and is often fatal.

Point to remember: Pretty much everything is toxic but the toxicity is often dose
dependant.

Ethylmercury versus Methylmercury

All Mercuries aren’t created equal.

Ethylmercury, while toxic at higher doses like water is, ethylmercury is considered safe at
lower doses. The half-life of ethylmercury is estimated to be about 10 days and this means
that after 10 days half of the initial dose is detectable in the body.

However, the halflife of ethylmercury is a guesstimate, based upon what’s known about
methylmercury. Methylmercury is known to be quite toxic even at small doses, and
methylmercury bioaccumulate’s, whereas ethylmercury doesn’t bioaccumulate.

This means that, while methylmercury can build up to very toxic levels in the body over
time, ethylmercury leaves the body and likely has a halflife of only a few days.

The LD50 of ethylmercury is estimated to be about 5,000mg/kg. This equates to half of

those weighing 50KG having to ingest a quarter of a million mg of ethymercury in order to
be at risk!

Point to remember: Ethylmercury and Methylmercury are vastly different compounds.