Tuna Industry Contests EPA's Estimates About Mercury Levels in Newborns

Washington, DC - The U.S. Tuna Foundation, the trade association representing the domestic tuna processing industry, today challenged new assertions that unborn babies may be exposed to methyl mercury if during pregnancy their mothers consume many varieties of fish, including canned tuna.

Responding to new reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes that an estimated 630,000 U.S. babies may be exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that would put them at risk for neurological problems, USTF stated that this estimate is not backed by any real science, and in fact, is not backed by EPA as official policy. Rather, USTF reports that the estimate in question results from a presentation made by an EPA staffer at a recent forum on fish issues representing the staffer's personal views and based on the staffer's calculations using one epidemiological study.

In contrast this new speculation, USTF cited extensive scientific studies which confirm that pregnant and nursing women can eat canned tuna safely. Even the study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has been used by environmental activists to raise alarm bells about mercury levels in the blood of mothers and children, has not found levels of mercury that would place any woman or child at risk. Specifically, the CDC study found that even those pregnant women with the highest levels of mercury in their blood (8 percent of the 1,709 women) did not approach 50 percent of the "no observable adverse effect level" (the threshold for any known risk). To reach this level, the average woman would have to consume 1,358 six-ounce cans of tuna per year - and no one ever has.

Besides challenging the new estimate as "unfounded," USTF called on Americans to follow the common-sense advice of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which tells pregnant and nursing women "You can safely include tuna as part of your weekly fish consumption" and recommends eating an average of 12 ounces (2 to 3 meals) a week of cooked seafood, including caned tuna. FDA and other health authorities provide this advice because of the many health benefits of consuming fish during pregnancy, such as controlling blood pressure and cholesterol levels, increasing the amount of lean protein in the diet, and reducing the chance of a pre-term birth.

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