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CONSUMING FISH MAY PUT YOU AT RISK FOR MERCURY EXPOSURE

By The Editors Of consumer Reports® 4 min read

Fish is seen as such a beneficial food that the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency recently came out with proposed new guidelines recommending that women of childbearing age and young children eat more of it. But Consumer Reports warns that if Americans follow those guidelines without careful attention to which species they are consuming, they could end up taking in too much mercury.

The latest federal proposal encourages women who are pregnant, breast-feeding or trying to become pregnant to eat between 8 and 12 ounces of fish per week, and suggests a minimum weekly quota for young children, too. This marks the first time those agencies have set a firm minimum level for weekly fish consumption, including shellfish. Though the agencies say consumers should seek out fish that are low in mercury, almost all seafood contains the toxin in varying amounts, and getting too much of it can damage the brain and nervous system. That is especially true for fetuses, but children and adults who eat too much high-mercury seafood also can suffer harmful effects, such as problems with fine motor coordination, speech, sleep and walking, and prickly sensations.

Consumer Reports’ food-safety experts analyzed the FDA’s own data that measures mercury levels in various types of seafood. From that, they identified almost 20 seafood choices that can be eaten several times per week, even by pregnant women and young children, without worrying about mercury exposure. They include wild and Alaska salmon (canned or fresh), shrimp (most wild and U.S. farmed), sardines, tilapia, scallops, oysters and squid (domestic). However, Consumer Reports disagrees with the recommendations from the FDA and EPA on how much tuna women and children may eat. (It doesn’t think pregnant women should eat any.)

“We’re particularly concerned about canned tuna, which is second only to shrimp as the most commonly eaten seafood in the U.S.,” says Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. Given its popularity and its mercury content, canned tuna accounts for 28 percent of Americans’ exposure to mercury, according to an analysis by an EPA researcher published in 2007.

HOW MUCH

IS TOO MUCH?

When the FDA and EPA last issued recommendations about seafood in 2004, they advised women of childbearing age to eat no more than 12 ounces of fish per week because of concerns about exposure to mercury. Though the agencies are still recommending that upper limit, they now are adding minimum weekly quotas, in part because recent research the FDA conducted indicated that 1 in 5 pregnant women had eaten no fish at all in the previous month, and the majority of those who did had less than 4 ounces per week. In announcing the updated advice, the FDA’s acting chief scientist, Dr. Stephen Ostroff, said, “The latest science strongly indicates that eating 8 to 12 ounces per week of a variety of fish lower in mercury during pregnancy benefits fetal growth and development.” The proposed guidelines will be discussed in upcoming public meetings.

Other than the new advice on minimum weekly fish consumption, most of the other federal recommendations are essentially the same ones given in 2004. The agencies advise that young children and women of childbearing age avoid four fish with the highest mercury levels: swordfish, shark, king mackerel and tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico. They are also considering adding marlin and orange roughy to that list.

Consumer Reports’ safety experts agree that those women and children should avoid high-mercury seafood. They also suggest that anyone who eats 24 ounces or more of fish per week should steer clear of high-mercury choices. To minimize mercury intake, they should also limit their consumption of these higher-mercury fish: grouper, Chilean sea bass, bluefish, halibut, sablefish (black cod), Spanish mackerel (Gulf) and fresh tuna (except skipjack).

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