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Thu 11 Dec, 2003 08:50 am
Quote:The federal government plans to warn pregnant women, nursing mothers and even those thinking of getting pregnant to limit their consumption of tuna as part of a broad advisory concerning the dangers of eating fish and shellfish with elevated levels of harmful mercury.
Seems that tuna may contain levels of mercury that could cause neurological damages to developing fetuses.
Link to Mercury in Tuna Story
Quote:David Burney, executive director of the San Diego-based U.S. Tuna Foundation, said that the industry agrees there is a need to expand the government advisory to include tuna, but that manufacturers fear that environmental and consumer groups will exploit fears to unnecessarily harm the industry.
I remember how the apple industry got a black eye some time ago, because of the spraying of alar on the apples. Turned out to be a tempest in a teapot.
Haven't seen any warnings to people who are NOT pregnant, but to be on the safe side, I will cut down on my tuna salads. How about you?
I have known about the increasing mercury levels in fish for a while, a by-product of humans dumping industrial waste into the oceans.
This is the first official warning I have heard about though. Interesting news.
This has been out there at least since I was pregnant (3 + years ago.) It looks like it's becoming more "official", but the information isn't new.
Soz- I knew that. I am wondering why the government is warning people NOW. Has the situation gotten worse, or is there another reason?
Seems they used to tell us to limit tuna as cat food. Should have known people would be next.
There have been warnings here in Europe since the early 90's.
I'v just googled and found some official US-warnings from the late 90's as well.
Quote:The advisory is the government's response to mounting public concern about the dangers of mercury pollution in tuna and other popular fish and shellfish.
It sounds to me like the evidence has been out there for a while, not necessarily getting worse -- what is getting worse is people saying, "hey, are you gonna do something about this?"
Quote:Consumer and environmental groups have long complained that the FDA has been slow to respond to the problem of mercury in tuna. Last year, the advisory committee recommended that the FDA warn pregnant women and young children to limit tuna in their diet and offer educational material about which fish are high or low in mercury.
Another day another warning. It seems that everything we eat and the air we breath is harmful to our health. I wonder than why is it we are living longer on average than ever before. When I was young people on average seldom lived to retirement age and if they did I was for only a short time. Now the norm is to live well into our 70's and even eighties. Could it be that all that poison is good for us?
In the vein of au1929's response, I read a blurb in the paper yesterday that stated the rate of babies being born 3 lbs and under has increased 25% in the last 20 years. (Still looking for the link) So pregnant women are eating healthy, getting better medical care, but certain maladies in babies are increasing.
I often wonder if the increasing numbers of preemies, low weight births, autism, etc etc is a product of better diagnoses, more controls on increased reporting, or perhaps the large increase in dietary restrictions, health warnings, and aggressive medical care.....
I don't know. I would continue to eat tuna. I've always love tuna, even when I was little. If pregnant, I wouldn't smoke, but I'd have a glass of wine with dinner every few weeks. I'd eat whatever I felt like eating as long as I wasn't gaining 100 lbs.
I do think that health warnings should be issued and the food industry should be regulated, but I also think that if I looked at everything close enough I'd starve to death and never leave the house.
I'd also be interested to know if cultures that have a very high consumption of fish, like Asian countries and Northern Europe, have a higher risk of children born with defects associated with mercury. I understand pollution levels are different, but a lot of our fish are from foreign waters.
Here's a link. Not exactly what I was looking for, but a similar example. A lot of these are attributed to the fact that more people are having twins or triplets. I know I'm making an assumption, but I'd attribute that to increases in fertility treatments.
http://www.mnplan.state.mn.us/issues/scan.htm?Id=2820
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