Woman Poisoned After Using Skin-Lightening Cream Tainted With Methylmercury

A woman in Sacramento had been using Pond’s Rejuveness cream, which she purchased from Mexico, for the past seven years without incident.

But in July, she began having strange symptoms. At first, the 47-year-old went to a doctor after experiencing what CNN described as “an odd pricking sensation and arm weakness.” Two weeks later, she went back to the doctor, this time with blurred vision and slurred speech. She was admitted to a hospital at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF). Her condition worsened. Dr. Paul Blanc, part of UCSF’s division of occupational and environmental medicine and the California poison control system, wrote that the woman’s condition declined into “agitated delirium,” according to CNN.