Mercurial Stupidity

What happens in Vegas... is mass hysteria:

Walter Johnson Junior High School in Las Vegas was closed for a second day after hundreds of students were screened for possible mercury contamination.

Some 1,200 students and at least 100 staff members were screened for possible mercury contamination beginning Wednesday. They were kept at the school for about 17 hours Wednesday into early Thursday while being examined for exposure and contamination. Nine students and three staff members were quarantined, but were released by about 5 a.m. Thursday.

What, you might be asking, triggered this state of panic? Was mercury discovered in the mashed potatoes at lunch? Perhaps someone aerosolized a couple pounds of it into the AC intake? A tanker truck carrying a load of industrial mercury overturned in the parking lot? Nope, nope, aaaand... nope:

"The amount we're were dealing with was the equivalent of an old school thermometer," said Capt. Ken Young with Clark County School police.

A teacher discovered a student playing with the substance at about 11 a.m. Wednesday. Hazmat teams were called out and the students were systematically screened. While mercury, a neurotoxin, is found in the environment, high levels can lead to death.

The school said it will spend the coming days decontaminating the classroom buildings. It is unclear when students will be able to return to class.

"Decontaminating the classroom buildings." Because one kid did what I daresay everyone reading this did when we were kids: break open a thermometer and spend a few minutes satisfying our curiosity about the metal known as mercury.

You've probably heard the term "mad as a hatter." If you aren't aware, it refers to the fact that in the 19th century, the headbands of men's hats were weighted with mercury to keep them securely on the head. Haberdashers would use their thumbs to press the mercury into the base of the band and stitch it up. After many years of direct exposure to mercury on a daily basis, the mercury would gradually become pervasive as it pressed through the skin and got into the bloodstream, eventually causing damage to the neural pathways of the brain. Is mercury deadly? Not really. Can it cause brain damage? Yes. But I trust you're seeing the problem here: millions of men wore hats filled with mercury for over a century, and they didn't go mad. Only some of the guys making the hats did, and then only after many years of direct exposure on a daily basis.

So let's return to present-day Nevada, where they're going to somehow "decontaminate" multiple buildings after one boy rolled a fraction of an ounce of mercury around in his hand for a few minutes. How fucking silly does that look now?

If ignorance costs time and money, mass hysteria costs a fortune. Somebody in Vegas needs to step in front of a camera and say "Now hold on just one goddamned minute..."