Monday, January 12, 2009

Mercury in predator fish higher than 'safe' in some

NPR - Making Sense Out of Mercury in Fish
and

Oceana, a marine conservation group purchased under 100 samples of raw fish from grocery stores and sushi restaurants in 23 cities and sent them to an independent testing lab in Michigan. In nearly half the samples, the levels of mercury were high. Predator fish like swordfish, tilefish, shark, and king mackrel, all of which eat other fish (who have mercury in them, too) and live longer (and therefore have more time to accumulate the mercury) were among the worst. Tuna is also high, though 'canned light' is usually skipjack tuna, a younger, smaller variety than the albacore and yellowfin and should contain less mercury. Mercury is bad for neurological development in children, babies, and probably bad for the brains of adults too, though the FDA's 'action level' is a 1 part per million.

Unfortunately, there is no strong consensus on how many parts per million is bad for people, and the FDA and EPA are at loggerheads about whether the benefits of fish outweight the costs.

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