FDA Issues Mercury / Seafood Risk Assessment Despite EPA’s Objectionsff

From Environmental Working Group

FDA says a risk analysis on fish consumption it posted Jan. 16 does not affect a 2004 advisory against eating fish that often contain high levels of mercury, despite Environmental Protection Agency complaints that the assessment undermines that advisory. Environmental groups say FDA hurriedly published the risk assessment over EPA’s objections and is paying lip service to EPA's concerns about the effects of the advisory.

FDA issued the risk assessment on the last working day of the Bush administration.

”The draft risk and benefit assessment report should not be construed as altering the existing fish advisory,” an FDA notice of the assessment states. “Moreover, because this assessment does not distinguish among types of fish in terms of their beneficial constituents, it is not possible to translate the results of this analysis into fish-specific advice to consumers about maximizing benefits.”

The National Fisheries Institute seems to think otherwise.

”This report serves as strong evidence that it is time to review and revise that guidance,” the trade group states in reference to the government’s seafood consumption advice.

The National Fisheries Institute points out that respected scientists, including those at EPA, reviewed FDA’s assessment.

EPA scientists sent a letter to FDA stating the study was “scientifically flawed and inadequate in several aspects.” The report simplifies the relationship between the risks of mercury and the benefits of eating fish, and EPA took issue with some of the assessment’s methodologies.

Also, people may eat fish that are not prone to high levels of mercury to get the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids so the benefits of omega-3s in no way justify a radical revision of the government's current mercury health advisory, which represents the views of the vast majority of scientists, EPA told FDA.

”As it exists in its current state, it is not a product that NCEA will endorse or approve as it does not reach the level of scientific rigor routinely demonstrated by EPA,” EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment Director Peter Preuss wrote in a letter to FDA in December.

The risk assessment remains largely unchanged from the earlier version Preuss reviewed.

Environmentalists say it was irresponsible of FDA to publish the report. The public health advisory on fish consumption is complicated, they say, and FDA just made it more confusing.

In 2004, FDA and EPA advised children and women of childbearing age to not eat four types of fish: shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish. The advisory also said these groups should eat only two meals of other fish a week and eat albacore tuna only once a week.

Fish that are high in mercury are less likely to be high in omega-3 fatty acids. Fish high in omega-3s - including salmon, sardines, herring, trout and, to some extent, shrimp - are not high in mercury, says Kathryn Mahaffey, a former EPA scientist who is now at George Washing University’s School of Public Health.

She says advice on the total amount of fish people should consume does little to help the public because the government should focus on which fish are beneficial and which pose a risk.

”The risk assessment is not informative,” Mahaffey says.

Kim Warner at Oceana agrees. She adds that FDA clearly plans to use the risk assessment to inform policy. She assumes FDA will put the assessment into the compendium of literature used to reassess the advisory.

Likewise, Environmental Working Group Senior Analyst Sonya Lunder said FDA released the report, on the last possible day, despite EPA’s opposition, so it have a reason.

“The timing is suspect,” she says.