Why are they even selling mercury thermometers for oral use when an alcohol one (the red liquid) does fine

I wondered that as well, but they are. I've started to think there's an organized effort by a government with a lot of state-owned enterprises to actually dispose of toxic waste by shipping it to gullible American consumers. Not that it isn't also poisoning people there.

well, the chinese outsourced hog farms (pork production) to the U.S. because the farms are considered too toxic and environmentally destructive for them.

Mercury has higher thermal conductivity than alcohol. The temperature reading stabilizes faster with mercury.

For sure but I haven’t seen one for home use in nearly 40 years. The risk of having mercury in the hands of Joe Schmoe or his garbage is probably not worth it

There are plenty of stories around this

The old mercury ones were a lot easier to read. And faster.