Mercury Publicity Could Sink U.S. Tuna Sales ff

A proposed revision to the U.S. federal government's advisory to fish consumers for the first time mentions mercury in tuna, which has the San Diego-based tuna industry bracing for an onslaught of negative publicity.

“It's not the advisory that is harmful,” said Dave Burney, executive director of the San Diego-based U.S. Tuna Foundation. “It's all the rhetoric that goes on afterward.”

Bumblebee Seafoods and Chicken of the Sea International, two of the nation's three largest canned tuna producers, are based in San Diego. Together with StarKist Foods of Pittsburgh, the three companies distribute 80 percent of the canned tuna sold in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration's last advisory, published in March 2001, warned that women of child-bearing ages and children should avoid eating shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish.

Scientists have determined those species of fish contain the highest levels of methyl mercury, a toxic compound that can damage the central nervous system, especially in children and the unborn.

But the previous advisory made no mention of methyl mercury in tuna, an omission that drew criticism from environmentalists.

Americans eat an average of 19 pounds of fish per person a year, including 3.4 pounds of tuna.

Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project accuses the tuna industry of putting profits before people and using its clout to keep Americans in the dark about mercury levels in its product.  “The Food and Drug Administration has been asleep at the wheel,” Bender said. “First, they have been lax in testing fish, and secondly they are not warning the public. What we're seeing is undue influence by the fishing industry, led by the U.S. Tuna Foundation.”

The latest version of the advisory, drafted in December, states: “Tuna is one of the most frequently consumed fish in the United States. Mercury levels in tuna vary. Tuna steaks and canned albacore generally contain higher levels of mercury than canned light tuna. You can safely include tuna as part of your weekly fish consumption.”
 
Critics say the draft advisory fails to adequately inform the public about which types of seafood contain less mercury and are safer, such as shrimp, salmon and sardines.

The FDA recently released test results showing that canned albacore "white" tuna has three times the mercury level as canned "light" tuna.

Even so, the level of mercury in canned albacore is 50 percent below the level at which the government prohibits fish to be sold, said Burney, of the tuna foundation. A person can eat up to 1,354 cans of tuna in a year and still barely increase his or her health risk for methyl mercury contamination, he said. “This whole problem has been so taken out of context,” he said. “The science is clear that no one in the U.S. is at risk from eating tuna.”

The current FDA advisory says pregnant women and women of childbearing age can safely eat 12 ounces per week of a variety of cooked fish.

The upcoming change in the government's advisory was widely discussed this week at the National Forum on Contaminants in Fish, which concluded yesterday at the Doubletree Hotel in San Diego.

Attending the conference were 235 scientists and public health officials from across the country, including David Acheson, an FDA scientist overseeing the highly anticipated advisory rewrite, which will be issued this spring.

In an interview, Acheson said the new advisory is unprecedented in that it will reflect a consensus between the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Previously, the EPA issued a separate advisory aimed at fish caught by sport fishers, while the FDA tailored its message toward consumers who buy commercially caught fish.

The advisories were often quite different, leaving fish eaters perplexed over what quantities and which species could put them at risk.

“I think this will be a positive step in communicating a single, simple message,” Acheson said. “Remember,” he added, “This is not designed to be a tuna advisory, it's meant to be a fish advisory.”  Considering the broad range of food contamination issues the FDA deals with, “this is not an atomic bomb,” he said.

Both federal agencies got plenty of comments on the draft advisory.

“This conference is like one huge focus group with a lot of different ideas and options,” said forum co-chairman Bob Brodberg of the California Environmental Protection Agency. “I think the federal government will probably revise the advisory some more and do some further testing.”

The economics of the proposed changes to the advisory were not discussed. “What concerns us at the state level is balancing a good level of protection with still having a clearly understandable message,” Brodberg said. “We don't want to go back to the previous state of confusion.”