News Coverage
On mercury, FDA feels heat
Published July 24, 2002
IN RECONSIDERING a fishy decision, it's better late than never.
Today, after a three-day inquiry, the Food and Drug Administration will decide if its warnings against mercury-tainted fish have been as strong or extensive as they should have been.
Right now, the FDA warns pregnant women not to eat four types of fish -- shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish -- because the methylmercury concentrations in those fish might be high enough to cause birth defects or learning disabilities in their children.
Critics say that more fish, tuna most prominent among them, ought to be on the list. Critics also contend that the FDA should either ban the sale of the risky fish outright, or at least require warning labels directly on the packaging.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 8 percent of U.S. women of child-bearing age have enough mercury in their blood to be at risk. An organization called the Environmental Working Group estimates that 1 million American women per year could be exposed to excessive mercury if the FDA's advice is not strengthened.
And the Mobile Register, in a series of tests, has shown that mercury contamination among Gulf fish and in south Alabama residents might be far higher than safe levels.
For all those reasons, it is a good thing that the FDA is re-examining its rules on the subject. FDA food safety chief Joseph Levitt claims that the agency is truly open to all evidence.
It had better be. Public health is too important to be governed by vague warnings trickled through the media. And it's too important for the FDA to rely on haphazard tests and incomplete data.
The FDA is to be commended for revisiting the issue. Now let's hope the agency makes a decision short on politics, and long on science.