Don’t Pollute Unless You Have a Religion!

Last year, the UN was about to approve a treaty to reduce mercury pollution and environmental mercury exposure across the world, with a huge inconvenient – it’d ban thimerosal in vaccines.

Now, the treaty was approved by 140 countries and there was no ban on thimerosal:

Vaccines, which in the vast majority of developing countries still contain thimerosal, a mercury compound used as a preservative, were excluded from the treaty.

Big hooray, right? But not everything is good. First, the final treaty fell far below expectations. And secondly, religious privilege made it’s way into the treaty:

The most notable exceptions to that rule are the vaccines, where mercury serves as preservative; and when this substance is used in traditional and religious practices, which include santeria, spiritualism and Hinduism.

So, you know – try not to pollute using mercury, unless it is a deeply held belief of yours. In that case, feel free to contaminate everyone’s environment all you want, we wouldn’t want our lives and health to come across as impositive to your beliefs!