Big Tuna's FDA Lunch

Boston Globe, Editorial Staff
Published March 18, 2002

Women of child-bearing age already carry a 10 to 15 percent risk that the mercury levels in their blood are high enough to slow the mental development of their offspring. To reduce further risk, the US Food and Drug Administration in 2001 warned pregnant women not to eat fish with high mercury levels such as mackerel and swordfish, not to mention shark and tilefish. Absent from the list was any mention of tuna, the most commonly eaten fish in the United States, accounting for one-third of all fish sales. The FDA believed that women get a dangerous level of mercury from tuna if they eat more than one and a half 6-ounce tins of it a week. But instead of warning pregnant women to moderate their tuna eating, the FDA - after meetings with Starkist, Bumble Bee, and other tuna companies - omitted any mention of it at all. The lame explanation was that most women don't eat that many tuna salad sandwiches and if told to limit their consumption would eat none at all, depriving themselves of an important source of nutrition. The FDA said it came to this conclusion because of focus groups conducted before its 2001 advisory. Women hear "limit" and think "avoid," according to a document released by the FDA in 2001 in defense of its reading of the focus group reports. But it turns out that this is not what the members of the focus groups concluded at all. The Washington-based Environmental Working Group went after the reports and found out that 30 of 37 women in the groups understood perfectly well that tuna was fine unless eaten in large amounts. Remarks from only seven indicated that they would stop eating it completely. Now, 14 months after the 2001 advisory, the FDA has swallowed its pride and is revisiting the whole subject of mercury in seafood. Well it should, and not just because of what the Environmental Working Group found out about tuna's omission from the list. For the 2001 advisory the FDA was working with an understanding of the safe levels of mercury in the blood that was not up to date. Reports from both the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences would limit fish consumption far more drastically. Under the National Academy's recommendation, a pregnant woman would be advised to restrict herself to one tin of tuna a month and to eat no tuna steaks at all. The new advisory should provide better guidance for women who want to protect their fetuses from mercury's effects. This time the regulators should keep the industry more at arm's length. The FDA might have done better a year ago if it had had a strong leader, but for more than a year it has had no leader at all - another example of why the Bush administration should stop dawdling in filling this top consumer health job.