News Coverage
Panel: Pregnant women should be warned about canned albacore
Published December 12, 2003
WASHINGTON - Pregnant women should be told to either restrict consumption of canned albacore tuna or not eat it at all because of mercury contamination, the Food and Drug Administration's science advisory committee said Thursday.
The 20-member panel agreed to recommend that FDA staff should redraft a proposed mercury advisory to include three lists targeted at pregnant women, women who may become pregnant, nursing mothers and children.
One list would include fish that should not be eaten at all due to high mercury content, such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish, which is sometimes sold as "golden snapper" or "white snapper."
The second would be a "positive" list of fish low in mercury that consumers should be encouraged to eat, up to 12 ounces of a week. This list would include canned "light" tuna, which tends to be three times lower in mercury than the more expensive canned albacore because it comes from a different species of tuna.
The third was described by committee members as a "go-slow" list of fish that should be eaten sparingly - probably no more than 6 to 8 ounces a week - because they have moderate amounts of mercury that could add up to a health problem if consumed more than once or twice a week.
Marion Aller, the panel member who proposed the lists, said she is not sure yet whether albacore will fall into the do-not-eat list or the go-slow list. Other members asked Aller, the food-safety director for the state of Florida, to fine-tune her proposal and put it in writing.
Studies show that even very small amounts of mercury can interfere with brain development in the fetus and young children, lowering intelligence and causing learning, attention and memory problems.
People are primarily exposed to mercury by eating fish. Government tests show that 8 percent of women of childbearing age have blood mercury levels that exceed the government safety standard. One percent of women who are in their 20s have mercury blood levels nearly three times higher than the safety standard.
"I think there is a general and increasing belief that there is a public health problem here that needs to be resolved and the consequences of that could be dramatic," said committee chairman Sanford Miller, a professor at Virginia Polytechnic and State University.
The panel's recommendations are only advisory, but they are usually followed by the agency.
During a public meeting of the committee, several environmental, consumer and public health advocates urged the FDA to warn women more strongly against eating canned albacore and some other kinds of moderate-to-high mercury fish to protect children in the womb.
Jane Houlihan, a scientist with the Environmental Working Group, a national advocacy organization, told the committee that mercury levels in the blood of 74 percent of pregnant women would exceed the government's safety level at least once during their pregnancy if they ate even one 6-ounce can of albacore every week.
Public health advocates also urged the FDA to expand the do-not-eat list to include more fish with high mercury levels, including canned albacore, tuna steaks, grouper and orange roughy.
Officials from the seafood industry said they oppose any advisory that specifically urges women to restrict consumption of albacore tuna, even if it also urges women to eat canned light tuna and other low-mercury fish.
Seafood industry research shows that just the suggestion by the FDA that eating albacore may be unsafe would be enough to significantly lower fish consumption across the board, said John Stiker, senior vice president for Bumble Bee Seafoods. Canned tuna is the third-most-purchased item in grocery stores after milk and coffee.
Industry and FDA officials stressed the importance of crafting a mercury advisory that does not scare people away from eating fish in general since it is an important source of certain fatty acids that can lower the risk of heart disease and are beneficial to fetal development.
The advisory panel also recommended that the FDA include specific recommendations in the advisory on serving sizes for children.
A 20-pound toddler would exceed the safe mercury exposure level by eating more than 1 ounce of albacore a week, and an 80-pound child should not exceed 4 ounces a week, said Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project, an environmental group.