COMMENT. Exposed children had the highest urinary mercury concentrations and young children may be at increased risk since vapors containing mercury are heavier than indoor air and tend to settle toward the floor. Individual exposure to mercury varies with the time spent in painted rooms, the depth and frequency of inhalation, the degree of ventilation in the room, and the likely decrease in mercury vapors over time. Opening all windows and doors decreased the concentration of mercury but it returned to the unventilated value within three hours of closing doors and windows. Mercury is released from surfaces coated with a paint containing mercury after the paint has dried. In the body phenylmercuric acetate is broken down to form inorganic mercury which accumulates in the kidney, the brain, and the fetus, and is excreted in the urine. A urinary mercury concentration of less than 100 nmol per liter is considered acceptable for adults but a background urinary mercury concentration for children has not been established. In the four year old boy who developed acrodynia, a 24 hour urine sample contained 324 nmol of mercury per liter. The clinical manifestations of acrodynia in this child included leg cramps, a generalized rash, pruritus, sweating, tachycardiac, an intermittent low-grade fever, marked personality change, erythema and desquamation of the hands, feet, and nose, weakness of the pelvic and pectoral girdles, and lower extremity nerve dysfunction developing sequentially. On June 29, 1990 the Environmental Protection Agency announced that compounds containing mercury could no longer be lawfully added to interior latex paint after August 20, 1990. If paint containing mercury is employed then proper ventilation must be insured. The history of mercury poisoning and its manifestation as acrodynia in children is reviewed in an editorial [2]. Dimercaptosuccinic acid given orally is the most promising therapy.