Tuna Could Soon Carry Mercury Warning ff

Source: Daily Naples News, Florida, USA – By Janine A. Zeitlin

As the federal government mulls slapping a mercury advisory on tuna, in the USA Southwest Florida seafood retailers say some customers are concerned that the food they thought was healthy could be hurting them.

Some experts say there's cause for concern, particularly for pregnant women and young children.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, which in the past have addressed mercury separately, are drafting an advisory due out sometime in 2004.

Advocates say a mercury warning on canned albacore tuna and tuna steaks is long overdue.

“FDA is continuing to slow-walk and drag their feet,” said Jon Corsiglia, a spokesman with the Environmental Working Group. “The FDA hasn't been complete with advice to their consumers and FDA's advice has been conspicuously lacking on tuna fish.”
 
The D.C.-based nonprofit research group filed a December legal challenge, contending the FDA is basing its advisory on insufficient and inadequate data, he said.

Mercury is a toxin that can harm the growing brains and nervous systems of children and fetuses. It can cause birth defects and developmental disorders in children.
 
About 8 percent of American women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

In recent studies, it's shown to impair adult brain functions just as easily. Deposited in water, mercury is converted to methylmercury by reacting with bacteria. When it's taken through the food chain and fish, the mercury concentration swells in larger, long-living fish.

Capt. Patty Kirk of Capt. Kirk's Stonecrab Fresh Seafood Market in Naples said pregnant women seem to be most aware of the dangers of consuming mercury-contaminated fish. “Some pregnant women say they don't eat it, but that they can't wait until they are not pregnant,” she said. “Most people say they eat it in moderation and they are comfortable with that.”
 
Charley Bohley, a co-owner of Rodes Fish Market & Restaurant in Bonita Springs, fields frequent questions about the yellowfin tuna and swordfish but hasn't noticed a sales decline. “I'll get a wave of people coming in and I'll think, 'There must have been an article,'” he said. “Yes, people have been asking but it's not really deterring the amount sold. People who are really concerned are buying other fish, like salmon and grouper.”
 
However, recent studies have found contaminants in farm-raised salmon and high mercury levels in grouper.

The FDA's advisory is a work in progress, said spokeswoman Laura Bradbard, who was hesitant to speculate how tuna might appear in the advisory's final form. The FDA points consumers to the current advisory posted on its Web site at: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/mehgadvisory1011.html
  
The advisory tells consumers to eat no more than 12 ounces of fish per week to avoid dangerous levels of mercury. It also points out that some fish, particularly canned albacore tuna, contain high mercury levels. But the advisory fails to tell consumers which fish are the most contaminated and should be avoided.

“FDA is refusing to name names,” said Linda E. Greer, director of the National Resources Defense Council's Health and Environment Program. “It's not telling us which fish we can eat without worry and which fish we should avoid.” Greer said the agency's own data show that certain fish are too contaminated with mercury to be eaten.

Using the FDA's current guidelines, she said a 132-pound woman who eats just one 6-ounce can of albacore tuna a week would exceed the EPA safe level by more than one-and-a-half times. Tuna accounts for 25 to 35 percent of all the seafood consumed in the United States.
 
The NRDC, using government data, compiled a list by body weight for people to safely consume tuna at http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/031211.asp.
Ned Groth has pushed the FDA to publish low-mercury alternatives. Until recently, Groth was a senior scientist with Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. “You can't just tell consumers what not to buy. They need to know what to buy,” he said.

Salmon, oysters, shrimp, clams and tilapia are the choices containing the lowest mercury, Groth determined based on FDA data. Sardines, farm-raised trout, crayfish, flounder and croaker are also lower mercury options.

Chick Ely, a manager at Gulf Shrimp Beach Seafood Market at Fort Myers Beach, said seafood lovers must use common sense. A handful of customers have asked him about mercury in the yellowfin tuna. “You don't go out and eat tuna every day — or mackerel. You've just got to use some common sense,” said Ely, who hasn't noticed a sales drop. “If you gorge and gorge on prime rib, what's that going to do to your cholesterol level?”

Other groups, such as the American Heart Association, remind consumers that fish are heart-healthy. Albacore tuna is among fatty fish, like mackerel, lake trout, salmon and sardines, high in omega-3 fatty acids, which the American Heart Association recommends eating twice weekly.

Southwest Florida fishermen, who eat tuna and larger fish regularly, don't understand the mercury concerns. Some say the media have overblown the health impact.

“You'd have to eat 400 pounds of tuna every day to have mercury poisoning,” said Danny Holloway, manager of the Lee County Fishermen's Cooperative. “You show me somebody who died from mercury poisoning from eating fish. Where are the bodies? I don't see no mercury-poisoning funeral going down the roads."

While it's difficult to find a direct link to mercury and poor health, Dr. Jane Hightower found that fish consumption was connected with mercury elevations in 123 patients in a 2003 study.

The San Francisco doctor began the study to find the root of inexplicable symptoms such as fatigue, upset stomach, hair loss, headaches and joint pains in her patients, while noting such symptoms could also be caused by other contaminants.
Hightower said the FDA should label for mercury in foods. She's concerned the federal agency is only focusing on mercury advisories for women of childbearing age. “(The FDA) is trying to make it a women's issue and it's not. It's an everybody issue,” he said. “We label for caffeine. Why can't we label for mercury?”

Hightower recommends consuming omega-3 fatty acids through nuts instead of fish and varying one's diet. “Rotate your poisons," she said. "Essentially, it's really hard to know what's in your food.”
 
As the FDA wades through making its mercury advisory final, some critics say the Bush administration's changes in the way EPA enforces the Clean Air Act will thwart mercury reductions.

Though mercury is a naturally occurring element, coal-fired power plants are the single largest mercury polluter, contributing 40 percent of the mercury to U.S. waters as the airborne particles settle to earth.

Regulations already in place called for a 90 percent decrease in mercury emissions, but new regulations require a decrease of 30 percent. But critics and states against the Bush administration-backed changes are hopeful after a federal appeals-court blocked one such change in December. The rule would have allowed coal-fired power plants and other industries to make repairs without installing pollution controls to reduce the amount of mercury.

An opinion on mercury in tuna titled “Mercury Madness” can be read on atuna’s opinion page