Latin American communities heavily affected by mercury and lead contamination Intervention programmes are vitally needed to support Amazonian communities exposed to mercury contamination in Latin America, and children who are among those most affected by lead poisoning. These are the conclusions of a review of studies conducted between 2016 and 2021, published in Current Opinion in Toxicology, which also highlights a lack of data to assess the true scale of the problem. Exposure to lead and mercury is widely recognised as a global public health problem, with children in developing countries particularly impacted. In the Amazon, mercury contamination is linked to artisanal and small-scale gold mining where it is used in the gold purification process. The toxic metal contaminates fish, which indigenous communities rely on heavily for food.