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Curly Fluorescent Bulbs: A Mercury Time Bomb In Your Home
By Thomas Lifson
Bookworm has been doing some research on what happens when you break one of those curly compact fluorescent bulbs. The ones with about 5 mg of highly poisonous mercury in them, the ones that we all may be forced to bring into our homes.

It may not be true that you will be forced to spend $2000 on a toxic waste clean-up, but if you clean it up yourself, you may also be leaving behind mercury, which insidiously finds its way into cracks and tiny indentations in the flooring, and which can vaporize and slowly poison you and your family. Above all, you must not use the vacuum!

Pure elemental mercury is a cumulative heavy-metal poison that is moderately absorbed through the skin, rather poorly absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract, and readily absorbed as vapor through the lungs. The element is strongly toxic when absorbed as vapor from the respiratory tract, but it is considerably less so when exposure occurs via other routes.

I urge everyone who has a CFL bulb in the house (I have many of them), or who is considering buying them, either to save money or to get an approving nod from the Laurie Davids of the world, to read Bookworm's entry, which has lots of resources linked. She mentions her own experience with mercury poisoning, so let me relate mine:

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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/05/greenie_blowback_the_mercury_t.html