Originally Posted by
Ralph Sprang
The challenge is that the numbers are all over the place for the actual level of mercury in fish. FDA limits it to 1 ug/g and regularly cites commercial vendors who exceed that limit. Other claim the lower numbers previously cited. So you could expect to find from 0 to 13.6 mg in 30 lbs of fish.
Of course, the exposure to mercury from eating ANY fish is higher than that from normal use of a CFL - the mercury in a CFL is contained within the bulb and stays there, as long as the bulb is not broken. If the bulb breaks, since the mercury is in vapor form it rapidly dissipates, and it would be very difficult to inhale more than about 10% of the mercury vapor without making special effort to do so, so let's say you could potentially inhale 0.4 mg of mercury, using the highest numbers cited in this thread. Using the lowest numbers cited in this thread, that's the equivalent of eating 56 ounces of tuna, or, using the FDA limit, 14 ounces.
So, the bottom line is that one is very unlikely to receive more mercury exposure from CFLs than from eating fish. As a practical matter, it just doesn't matter - unless you are eating LOTS of mercury laden fish or are constantly breaking CFL bulbs, it will have essentially no impact on your health or life.