Segovia, a city of 44 000 people in Colombia's Antioquia province, offers an unsettling pair of initial impressions. First, there are the heavily armed combat troops at the outskirts of town, stationed here because Segovia is one of Colombia's busiest gold refining centres, and guerrillas and paramilitary groups raid here for easy cash. The other initiation is more insidious: it begins a few minutes after arrival with an unfamiliar, metallic taste on the tongue. Within an hour, it has crept to the back of the throat. After a couple of hours it is in the lungs. This is the taste of airborne mercury, a severe local environmental and public health problem. Like the combat troops, it, too, can be traced to Segovia's gold wealth, and the violence it attracts.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60582-0/fulltext?rss=yes
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