People who eat canned albacore tuna get too much mercury,
New data analysis shows
On January 26, 2004, the Mercury Policy Project (MPP), California Communities
Against Toxics (CCAT) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) will release
data showing that vulnerable populations such as pregnant women and children are
putting their health at risk if they eat canned tuna, particularly albacore, due to mercury
contamination.
The results will be released at the National Forum on Contaminants in Fish in San Diego,
California. The annual forum brings together public health and environmental officials
from states, tribes and NGOs such as fishing groups. This year's conference includes a
special session on mercury at which the Food and Drug Administration’s National
Mercury Advisory will be discussed, along with new data on mercury levels in tuna
presented by Hawaii and Washington State Health Departments.
In December of 2003, the FDA proposed a new draft fish advisory that tells consumers to
eat no more than 12 ounces of fish per week to avoid dangerous levels of mercury. But
the advisory failed to tell consumers which fish are the most contaminated and should be
avoided. The FDA science advisory panel rejected the draft, and instructed FDA to
instead create three lists of specific types of fish with high, medium, and low mercury
levels.
“The FDA needs to throw away their draft guidelines and follow the recommendations
made by its science advisory panel last month,” said Dr. Gina Solomon, a physician and
Senior Scientist at NRDC. “People have a right to know which fish are healthy and which
are not.”
The new tuna testing conducted by FDA, when combined with MPP data, includes 218
cans of albacore tuna and 141 cans of light tuna sold under a variety of brand names. The
results show that the average levels of mercury in albacore is 0.39 parts per million
(ppm), and in light tuna the average is less than a third of that in albacore – 0.12 ppm.
However, the top five percent of cans of albacore have mercury levels over 0.64 ppm.
“A woman who eats an average 6 oz. can of albacore in a day would exceed the EPA’s
‘safe’ level for mercury exposure by over ten-fold; a woman eating a can in the top five
percent would consume more than 30-times more mercury than EPA considers safe,” said
Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project.
The data also show an enormous range in concentrations within each type of tuna.
Mercury concentrations in albacore varied from 0.03 ppm to 1.1 ppm, a 36 fold range. At
the high end, the mercury concentration in canned albacore is more than 3 times the
amount FDA used in its calculations of safe consumption of albacore. Mercury
concentrations in chunk light tuna also had a large range, varying from 0.013 to 0.533
ppm, a 40 fold difference.
“It is clear from this new data that tuna consumption is putting the health of Californians
at risk,” said Jane Williams, director of California Communities Against Toxics, a
coalition of community-based health advocacy and environmental justice groups, “both
the tuna industry and our state government need to do more to warn consumers about the
dangers of tuna consumption.”
Among the top three brands, Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and Starkist, the numbers
looked even worse - two out of three cans of albacore contained mercury at levels above
0.35 ppm, which was the level upon which FDA based its fish advisory for tuna mercury.
“When a consumer reaches for a can of tuna in the grocery store, they don’t know if they
are buying a can that is low in mercury or high in mercury. They are playing Russian
roulette, and there’s better than a 50-50 chance they’ll get a high can,” added Michael
Bender of the Mercury Policy Project.
Like lead, mercury is a potent neurotoxin that especially threatens the brains and nervous
systems of fetuses and young children. People are exposed to mercury largely through
eating certain fish. Coal-fired power plants, chlorine production facilities and other
industrial sources emit the chemical into the environment, and a particularly dangerous
form of it – methyl mercury – accumulates in the tissue of large predator fish, such as
shark, swordfish and tuna.
Government tests show that one out of twelve women of childbearing age have blood
mercury levels that exceed the government safety standard.
The data base on mercury in tuna provided with this release is a combination of FDA test
data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and MPP data published last June in
its report “Can the Tuna.” The two sets of test data showed consistent results.
For more information:
http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/forum/2004/
http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/mehgadvisory1208.html
http://www.mercurypolicy.org
http://www.stoptoxics.net
http://www.nrdc.org
The Mercury Policy Project works to promote policies to eliminate mercury uses, reduce
the export and trafficking of mercury, and significantly reduce human and wildlife
exposures to mercury at the local, national, and international levels. MPP was founded in
1998 and networks with hundreds of NGOs, scientists and government officials on
mercury issues.
California Communities Against Toxics advocates for environmental justice, pollution
prevention, and world peace. CCAT was founded in 1989 and is one of the oldest and
most successful environmental justice networks in the country, uniting Native Nations,
inner city people of color, and the rural poor in coalition.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit organization of
scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and
the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 550,000 members nationwide,
served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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MEDIA ADVISORY
CONTACT: Dr. Gina Solomon or Craig Noble, 415-777-0220
Jane Williams 661-510-3412
Michael Bender, 802-249-8543
Elliott Negin, 202-289-6868
