Published in the Asbury Park Press 4/13/01
By LISA BLUBAUGH
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials should warn pregnant and nursing women to stop or limit their consumption of more types of fish -- including canned tuna -- to reduce their risk of exposure to mercury, two environmental groups urged yesterday. Mercury can harm a child's development.

The Food and Drug Administration recommends that pregnant and nursing women avoid eating shark, swordfish, tilefish and king mackerel. But the Environmental Working Group and U.S. Public Interest Research Group say that standard does not take into consideration the levels of mercury already in a woman's system before pregnancy.

The report said information released last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 10 percent of all women of childbearing age have blood methylmercury levels above the dose that may put their fetus at risk of developing more slowly and having learning disabilities.

The environmental groups say the FDA also should warn pregnant women against eating tuna steaks, sea bass, Gulf Coast oysters, marlin, halibut, pike, walleye and largemouth bass. Pregnant women should eat canned tuna no more than once a month, the groups said.

"Women are faced with an unacceptable trade-off. Fish are a rich source of protein during pregnancy, but mercury pollution has made many types of fish a considerable health risk to their babies," said Jeremiah Baumann, environmental health advocate for U.S. PIRG.

The two groups based their recommendations on seven separate government databases on mercury levels in various species of fish.

Mercury, released in emissions from power plants and incinerators, is washed into waterways and accumulates in plants and the fatty tissue of animals.

The U.S. population primarily is exposed to methylmercury by eating fish, according to the CDC report.

In January, government health officials issued new advisories warning women about exposure to unsafe levels of methylmercury. The FDA recommended pregnant women avoid eating the four aforementioned species but said they could safely consume 12 ounces per week of any other fish.

The FDA yesterday stuck by its advisory, which it said was based on other studies done around the world. The agency also stressed the importance of a balanced diet, one that includes fish.

The new advisory came after months of criticism from environmental and health advocacy groups who had urged more stringent warnings. "It was a step in the right direction, but they need to go a step further," said Sam Boykin, field director for the New Jersey PIRG Citizen Lobby.

The environmental groups said the federal advisory based its calculations on the effect of fish consumption on a 150-pound person. Half of all women weigh less, Boykin said.

In New Jersey, limited consumption is recommended for largemouth bass and chain pickerel from all fresh water bodies. Like marine fish species covered by mercury advisories, bass and pickerel are relatively long-lived fish that feed at the top of the food chain, and thus tend to concentrate, or bioaccumulate, pollutants in their tissue.

In 1994, state officials announced methylmercury levels were particularly elevated in fish from several central and southern New Jersey lakes.

Scientists believe higher natural acidity in surface waters of the Pinelands and surrounding areas may play a role in higher mercury levels.

"The big issue for New Jersey is the out-of-state power plants" that burn coal and emit mercury that drifts to the Eastern seaboard, Boykin said. "Forty percent of our air pollution comes from those plants and they account for most of our mercury pollution."

On Monday, the Bush administration raised hopes that it will continue a federal effort to reduce those emissions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit from the power industry that challenged the EPA's intent to force mercury reductions.

About one-third of U.S. mercury emissions come from power plants and are not regulated. In its last days, the Clinton administration announced it would seek mercury controls, but did not specify how much mercury power companies would have to remove from their exhaust.

Spokespeople for Starkist Seafood and Chicken of the Sea referred calls for comment to the National Food Processors Association, which dismissed the environmental groups' recommendations.

"We think that FDA is a more credible source of advice and information on health and safety issues, " said Dr. Rhona Applebaum, the association's executive vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs.

But health activists supported the two environmental groups.

"What the FDA did was a step in the right direction but they are still failing to tell the whole story," said Michael Bender, executive director of the Mercury Policy Project, a nonprofit group based in Montpelier, Vt., dedicated to raising awareness about mercury contamination.

"There have been studies that reveal flaws in the FDA standards, and we think it's well past time that they strengthen them," said Charlotte Christin, food safety attorney for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.