RAU-RAU, Indonesia—Off the main road and down a terraced hillside, there is a small house painted a bright aqua. Behind the tidy house a much smaller bamboo hut sits on a foundation of stacked stones, like a cage on a platform.
Inside the hut it is dark, except for thin bands of light that filter through gaps in the bamboo walls.
A small girl lies on a blanket on the floor. Her mother crouches at her side.
IPENer Ram Charitra Sah, Executive Director of the Center for Public Health and Environmental Development (CEPHED), presented a paper entitled "Bio Monitoring of Mercury Contamination in Human Body and Policy Influence in Nepal" at the First National Summit of Health and Population Scientists in Nepal, which took place in April in Kathmandu. The paper relates to CEPHED's extensive work on mercury issues, especially bio-monitoring and policy initiatives, and was chosen as "Best Paper" among the 70 scientific papers presented at the summit.