OT: New warning for canned tuna

June 7, 2006

but mercury in vaccines is ok for newborns?

Go figure....????????????????

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0606060139jun06,1,2571963.s

tory?coll=chi-news-hed & amp;ctrack=1 & amp;cset=true

New warning for canned tuna Mercury risk for pregnant women too high,

Consumer Reports says

By Hawthorne

Tribune staff reporter

Published June 6, 2006

The chance that canned tuna will contain high levels of mercury is great

enough that pregnant women should never eat it, according to new

recommendations

from a leading consumer group.

Officials at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said

they decided to recommend a tuna-free diet for pregnant women based on a

Tribune investigative series on mercury in fish and the latest testing by the

Food

and Drug Administration.

The newspaper reported late last year that about 15 percent of canned light

tuna--the kind of tuna touted by the FDA as a low-mercury option--is made

with a species that often contains high amounts of the toxic metal.

FDA officials later revealed that 6 percent of canned light tuna sampled

between 2001 and 2005 had mercury levels that exceeded the average in canned

albacore tuna, which the federal government tells pregnant women and young

children to limit eating because it tends to have high levels of mercury.

In a two-page article in the July issue of Consumer Reports, the consumer

group also urged pregnant women to shun four other kinds of seafood because of

mercury concerns--Chilean sea bass, halibut, American lobster and Spanish

mackerel.

Health experts agree that eating fish is good for most people. But there are

concerns that mercury and other pollutants can offset the benefits.

It is unclear if a single meal of high-mercury seafood could damage a fetus.

Consumers Union, though, concluded that enough experts think the developing

brain is so sensitive to mercury that caution should prevail. " This is

important information that women need to hear, " said Halloran, the

director of

food policy at Consumers Union and a member of an FDA advisory panel on

mercury in seafood. " We think that high exposures, even for a day or two, could

be too much of a risk. "

The FDA and the tuna industry questioned the new advice for pregnant women,

saying their own reviews of government tests show there is no reason to doubt

the safety of canned tuna. FDA officials said they don't plan to warn the

public that some cans of light tuna contain high amounts of mercury because the

average level of mercury in canned light tuna remains low.

" We stand behind our advice, " said Acheson, the agency's chief medical

officer. " What we're striving to do is to strike a balance between the

benefits of eating fish and the harmful effects of mercury. "

When the FDA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a mercury

warning for seafood two years ago, the agencies told consumers that canned

light tuna was low in mercury. Sensitive groups--women of childbearing age,

young children, pregnant women and nursing mothers--should choose this seafood

instead of many other kinds, the agencies said.

The warning also cautions those groups to avoid four kinds of fish that

consistently are high in mercury--swordfish, shark, king mackerel and

tilefish--and to eat no more than 6 ounces of canned albacore tuna a week.

But shortly before the warning was issued, a top agency official

acknowledged during a public meeting that the FDA's reason for classifying

canned light

tuna as low in mercury was " to keep market share at a reasonable level. "

Of the five kinds of seafood listed in the FDA warning as low-mercury

options--the others are shrimp, salmon, pollock and catfish--only canned light

tuna

occasionally tests in the high range, according to agency records. All types

of fish contain some mercury. Because the metal accumulates as it moves up

the food chain, levels tend to be higher in large and long-lived predators

such as swordfish.

Most cans of light tuna are made with skipjack, a species relatively low in

mercury. But the Tribune found that the U.S. tuna industry often uses a

high-mercury species, yellowfin, to make some cans of light tuna.

The U.S. Tuna Foundation, an industry trade group, issued a statement saying

Consumer Reports " has done a great disservice in discouraging canned tuna

consumption through inaccurate and incomplete facts. "

Louis Sullivan, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, said the magazine's advice could end up being bad for public health.

" I don't know of any science that supports what they're saying, " said

Sullivan, now a consultant for the Tuna Foundation. " For all we know they could

be

relying on high school science students to come up with this. "

Halloran said Consumers Union decided to issue more restrictive advice for

pregnant women based on an EPA formula that relies on mercury levels in fish

and a person's body weight to determine how much of the metal can be safely

ingested.

" Tuna isn't the only seafood out there, " said Jane Houlihan, vice president

for research at the Environmental Working Group, another organization that

has been critical of the FDA's mercury policy. " The good news is there are

plenty of other fish women can eat that are safe. "

mhawthorne@...

June 7, 2006

I heard this on the news... Does this not just freak you out? Not to mention

piss you off.

LymeAngl@... wrote: but mercury in vaccines is ok for newborns?