Methylmercury in fish: FDA updates its advice for consumers

Background:
Mercury in the form of methyl- mercury tends to bioaccumulate in marine organisms and gets biomagnified along the marine food-chain. For most people, intake of mercury from eating seafood isn’t a health risk. But the FDA has warned that pregnant women, those who might become pregnant, and young children avoid certain types of high-mercury fish because of concern that too much could harm a developing brain. The U.S. government’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines incorporated the FDA’s warnings to say that pregnant or breastfeeding women should consume 8 to 12 ounces of a variety of seafood per week. But it said they should not eat tilefish, shark, swordfish and king mackerel because of the mercury content, and it advised limiting white albacore tuna to 6 ounces a week. This is due to high mercury levels in these larger fish.

FDA update of mercury-in-seafood advice
Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said on Friday May 30th that the agency will update guidance on mercury in varieties of seafood and what that means. That’s a long-awaited move aimed at helping women better understand what to eat when they’re pregnant. Consumer groups have sued the agency, saying that the warnings weren’t clear enough about what to avoid.

“It’s an advisory, not an effort to mandate labeling,” Hamburg said on ABC News. “Different seafood products do contain different levels of mercury, and so different seafood products can be rated in terms of levels of mercury.”

Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the groups that sued, said the new advisory will be an improvement if it gives consumers better information, especially if that information could be kept at fish counters in grocery stores and retail outlets.