FDA's mercury levels too high for pregnant women, they believe
Dallas Morning News, Randy Lee Loftis
Published April 12, 2001
Federal guidelines don't protect pregnant women from mercury in fish, two groups said Thursday.
"We find the guidelines staggeringly inadequate," Luke Metzger of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said in Dallas.
His group and the Environmental Working Group said the guidelines could expose pregnant women and their fetuses to harmful mercury levels.
The Food and Drug Administration issued new mercury guidelines on commercial seafood in January. The Environmental Protection Agency issued advice about fish from lakes and streams.
FDA spokeswoman Ruth Welch said the guidelines are adequate but need more publicity. "The advisory is pretty conservative," she said.
Mercury spreads in emissions from coal-burning power plants. Texas health officials advise against fishing in several East Texas lakes because of mercury.
The groups' study shows the need to reduce all toxic substances in food, said Dr. Arnold Schecter, professor of environmental health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
"The problem is really not just one chemical at a time," he said. "It's the chemical cocktail that we get from the total food supply."
The FDA recommends no shark, swordfish, king mackerel or tilefish for pregnant women and young children. They can safely eat 12 ounces per week, or two to three servings, of other fish, the FDA says.
For recreationally caught freshwater fish, the EPA recommends no more than one 6- to 8-ounce serving a week for pregnant or nursing women and one 2- or 3-ounce serving a week for young children.
The groups said pregnant or childbearing-age women also should avoid tuna steaks, sea bass, Gulf Coast oysters, marlin, halibut, pike, walleye, white croaker and largemouth bass.
They urged no more than one meal per month of canned tuna, mahi mahi, blue mussel, Eastern oyster, cod, pollock, haddock, Great Lakes salmon, Gulf blue crab, wild channel catfish and lake whitefish.
Safer choices, they said, include farmed trout and catfish, shrimp, fish sticks, flounder, wild Pacific salmon, croaker, haddock, and mid-Atlantic blue crab.
