News Coverage
Seeking warning labels on canned tuna
Published July 23, 2002
Warning labels should be included on canned tuna urging pregnant women and children to limit how much tuna they eat because it can contain elevated levels of mercury, consumer advocates told the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday.
The FDA has failed to effectively warn pregnant women that they may be putting their unborn children at risk of neurological damage by not including canned tuna on its list of fish that pregnant women should avoid, consumer, health and environmental advocates said.
The FDA advisory on mercury in fish, adopted in January 2000, urges pregnant women and children to avoid four fish - shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish (also known as white snapper) - because of their high methylmercury content and to limit other fish consumption to no more than 12 ounces per week. "We are convinced that the FDA must do more to protect vulnerable populations - pregnant women, women who might become pregnant, nursing mothers and young children,'' Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, a health advocacy group, told the FDA's food advisory committee.
Zuckerman and another consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, recommended that the FDA include warning labels on canned tuna and other higher-mercury-content fish sold in supermarkets and on restaurant menus similar to the warning labels targeted to pregnant women that are on alcohol and cigarettes.
Tuna generally contains higher levels of methylmercury than most seafood, although its average level does not exceed the FDA guideline of 1 part per million. However, canned tuna is eaten so often by some women - it accounts for about 27 percent of all fish consumed in the United States - that it can accumulate in their bodies and pose a risk to their children.
The Environmental Protection Agency has adopted a safety level for human mercury exposure that is four times stricter than the FDA guideline. An EPA scientist told the committee that an estimated 380,000 children a year are born to women with levels of mercury in their blood that exceed the agency's safety guideline.
Tuna is also the most frequently consumed fish by children. Chronic, low levels of mercury exposure are generally not believed to be a health threat for adults, but fetuses and young children are far more vulnerable because their brains are still developing.
FDA and seafood industry officials have argued that that if the agency warns pregnant women to limit tuna consumption, many women will stop eating fish altogether, depriving themselves and their children of an important source of nutrition. Tuna and many other kinds of fish are high in healthy omega 3 fatty acids, which have been shown to help reduce the risk of heart attacks.
"At what point does fish become just too scary to eat? If you put a warning label on canned tuna, how many women will purchase it?'' said Bob Collette of the National Fisheries Institute, a trade association.
Richard Wiles, vice president of the Environmental Working Group, urged the FDA to create a second "good fish list'' of species that are generally low in mercury.
Low-mercury fish include salmon, farm-raised catfish, farmed trout and summer flounder.
The committee is scheduled to make a recommendation Thursday on whether the FDA should make changes to its advisory on mercury in fish.
On the Net: www.fda.gov