The Issue
Mercury
Mercury exposure from eating fish carries serious health risks, especially for developing fetuses. Read about EWG’s mercury research and learn how to avoid the dangers by using EWG’s Tuna Calculator.
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The Latest on Mercury
Just before hunting season opens in Utah, state officials are warning hunters not to eat two types of ducks that feed on Great Salt Lake marhes because tests on the animals show dangerous levels of mercury in their flesh.
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The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin reports on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study that shows that U.S. women living near a coast have higher levels than women living inland.
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As an update to last week's post on high mercury levels in supermarket tuna samples, the Eugene Register-Guard provides incentives for eating locally-caught fish: lower mercury, higher omega-3s and support for community businesses.
Read MoreAP reports that University of North Carolina tests in 21 states found average mercury levels in tuna and swordfish at 1.1 parts per million, over the government's limit of 1 ppm. The samples came from supermarket chains, including Safeway and Whole Foods, and some groups are pushing for supermarkets to include warning signs with their seafood displays.
Read MoreTwo Utah state agencies have denied a request for an independent testing program of mercury levels in fish in the Great Salt Lake Basin. In February the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the lake has the highest concentration of toxic mercury ever found in the environment.
Read MoreDavid Kirby, a New York Times reporter and author of "Evidence of Harm", and Dr. Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine, discussed the possible link between the increase of mercury in vaccinations between 1988 and 1992, and the explosion of autism cases in the last 90s.
Read MoreIn the wake of weak mercury pollution standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency last week, The Washington Post reported that the EPA failed to include findings from their own study showing stricter protections on mercury emissions benefit human health.
Read MoreThe Bush Administration says it will allow coal-burning power plans and other mercury polluters to trade emissions allowances, rather than requiring each facility to meet stricter standards. The cap-and-trade policy allows facilities in mercury “hot spots” to continue emitting high amounts of mercury.
Read MoreThe Environmental Working Group (EWG) today condemns the Bush EPA's proposed rule allowing power plants to trade mercury pollution credits.
Read MoreEWG appeal requesting correction of FDA seafood advisory entitled "What you need to know about mercury in fish and shellfish: 2004 FDA and EPA advice for women who might become pregnant, women who are pregnant, nursing mothers, young children" (PD
Read MoreThe nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) took the EPA to task this week for using fuzzy math and ignoring health effects to bolster President Bush’s cap-and-trade proposal for mercury emissions from power plants, The Washington Post reports. The EPA skewed its analysis to indicate that the administration’s proposal would garner greater savings than enforcing pollution caps on all plants, the technology-based plan favored by conservationists.
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With the Bush administration dragging its heels on limiting mercury emissions from power plants, concerned New Hampshire citizens are calling for legislation independent of federal regulations, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports. A new bill in the state Senate requires an 80 percent reduction in mercury emissions in eight years, as well as a cap on carbon dioxide.
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The international mining giant, Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., is under fire for dangerously polluting Indonesian communities in violation of US environmental standards. Now, an Environmental Working Group (EWG) search of US government electronic records it has posted on its web site (www.ewg.org/mining/) shows the company holds more acres of mining claims on Western public land than any other metal mining company. Newmont holds 347,458 acres of claims in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington.
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A year-long review by Environmental Working Group (EWG) finds that a near-universal trait in autistic children suggests a possible link between autism and children's exposure to mercury.
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The American Medical Association (AMA), the national professional organization for all physicians in the United States, has adopted a resolution that includes the following recommendation: "Given the limitations of national consumer fish consumption advisories, the Food and Drug Administration should consider the advisability of requiring that fish consumption advisories and results related to mercury testing be posted where fish, including canned tuna, are sold."
Read MoreEWG's Timeline of the scientific understanding about mercury toxicity from the 1950s to 2004.
Read MoreAir pollution from coal burned in power plants is a major source of mercury in fish. If women follow the FDA's advice and eat one can of albacore tuna a week, hundreds of thousands more babies will be exposed to hazardous levels of mercury.
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