US To Probe Mercury Risk in Canned Tuna - Paper
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USA: January 3, 2006

CHICAGO - The US Food and Drug Administration will investigate reports that some canned tuna sold in the United States may contain species with potentially dangerous levels of mercury, a top agency official told the Chicago Tribune in an article Saturday.

David Acheson, the FDA's chief medical officer, was quoted by the paper as saying his agency would review the possibility that some cans of "light tuna" contain yellowfin tuna, a potentially high-mercury species.
"We will definitely look at it through our office of seafood and determine whether there is something that requires further action," Acheson was quoted as saying.
The FDA recommends US consumers eat more light, or skipjack, tuna, than white, or albacore, tuna, because skipjack is a smaller fish that tends to be less tainted by the toxic metal than its larger cousin.
But in a three-part series published earlier this month, the Tribune reported that yellowfin tuna, another large tuna species which the government has identified as a high-mercury fish, was being packaged and sold as light tuna in as many as 180 million cans of each year.
The tuna industry has disputed the Tribune's reports and insists that no one is at risk from the minute amounts of mercury they acknowledge is found in their products.
In the Tribune story Saturday, David Burney, the executive director of the US Tuna Foundation, said the industry would cooperate with the FDA inquiry but called the concerns about yellowfin "a non-issue."

Mercury in Fish

Air pollution caused by coal-fired power plants has lead to alarming levels of mercury contamination in the fish we eat. Eating mercury-tainted fish damages the brains and nervous systems of children and can harm cardiovascular, immune and reproductive systems in adults.

The case of mercury provides some alarming insights into how we continue to pollute our air, our oceans, and our fish. It also highlights the need to support the Clean Air Act, which sets strong standards to cut pollution from power plants.

In 2002, 45 states and territories had issued fish consumption advisories for mercury, warning citizens to limit how often they eat certain types of fish due to mercury contamination. Seventeen states have issued mercury advisories for fish in every inland water body.

A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 1 in 12 women of childbearing age has mercury levels above the EPA's safe health threshold. Nationally, this translates into nearly 4.9 million women of childbearing age with elevated levels of mercury from eating contaminated fish—and approximately 322,000 newborns at risk of neurological effects from being exposed in utero.

How did so much mercury get into the fish we eat?

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 70 percent of mercury that humans release into the environment comes from coal-fired power plants. Clouds carry the mercury and, with each rain, drop it onto the ocean or other waterways. It thenenters the food chain. Top predators--such as large, long-livedfish--have the highest concentrations of mercury in their tissues.

In 2001, the Mobile Register newspaper sponsored testing of 65 fish consumers in coastal Alabama to determine their levels of mercury. Most of the participants had levels five to 10 times higher than what the EPA has determined is safe. That same year, the Food and Drug Administration advised women of childbearing age not to eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish. Moreover, ten states posted advisories against pregnant women eating canned tuna, the most consumed fish in the U.S.

In San Francisco, physician Jane Hightower found that a number of her patients were suffering neurological ailments including depression, headaches, arthritic pain, irritability, numbness, and tremors, as well as pronounced memory loss, confusion, and difficulties talking. "When we pulled fish out of the diet," said Hightower in aninterview with the Mobile Register, "'the mercury levels went down and the symptoms went away.'"

The current Clean Air Act provides critical tools that the states and the Environmental Protection Agency can use to achieve clean air. However, the Bush administration — through its so-called "Clear Skies Initiative" — would weaken the Clean Air Act. It would delay any mercury reductions to 2010 and then allow 26 tons of mercury emissions in 2010 and 15 tons in 2018. That's five times as much power plant mercury pollution through 2017, and three times as much mercury each year after, indefinitely. From 2008 through 2020, that's 284 tons more mercury under the Bush plan. The Clear Skies Initiative is only sunny for the coalindustry.