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A 47-year-old Californian woman has been in a semi-comatose state for weeks after using a Methylmercury tinted skin cream.
This is the first reported case of methylmercury poisoning caused by a skin cream in the United States, officials said Sacramento County Health officials.
The woman's son told Sacramento, a member of the NBC channel, KCRA, that her mother had been in the hospital since July. She arrived numb on the hands and face, with speech difficulties and difficulty walking, county health officials said.
She was able to respond to verbal commands at first, but she is now in a semi-comatose state, reported KCRA.
According to KCRA, it was discovered that she had more than 500 times the amount of mercury acceptable in her blood.
Doctors have tested women's cosmetics as a source of poisoning. "When they came to the face cream, it was when they noticed that there was a very high level of mercury," said his son.
Methylmercury is a very toxic form of mercury.
The woman received the cream labeled "Ponds" via an "informal network" that imported it from Mexico, health officials said in a statement.
"This type of cream is used by consumers to lighten the skin and eliminate stains and wrinkles," the statement said. "The mercury was not added by the pond manufacturer, but by a third after the purchase."
In a statement to NBC News, Ponds said, "We do not use mercury in our products, we take this issue very seriously and work closely with all authorized retailers to ensure products remain intact. and that they can be used safely since their dispatch. "
"Illegal sales, handling and resale of products are problems of the beauty industry that deserve special attention and consumer awareness," said Ponds. "The product in question is not sold in the United States"
Third parties sometimes add mercury to creams because the poison stops melanin production, KCRA reported, citing health officials.
Mercury can enter the nervous system and cause serious damage. "Once it's gone through the brain, even if you go to the hospital, the drugs we have can no longer be removed," Olivia Kasirye, a public health officer from KCRA, told KCRA. Sacramento County.
Health officials advise people to avoid such creams.
"The Sacramento County Department of Public Health is urging the community to immediately stop using similar skin creams imported from Mexico because of the risk of methylmercury contamination," Kasirye said in a statement.
In California alone, more than 60 poisonings in the last nine years have been linked to foreign-branded, unlabeled or homemade skin creams containing a less toxic form of mercury, mercury chloride or mercury. calomel, says the release.
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