It’s always been a mystery to me why the fishing industry equates
“some fish have mercury, so avoid high-mercury fish” with “don’t eat any
fish at all,!” Yet it does, arguing that those irresponsible scientists
who issue warnings about mercury in fish will make people miss out on
the heart and (for fetuses) cognitive benefits of fish. Rather than join with scientists and government agencies to maximize
the benefits of eating fish and minimize the risks by guiding us to
low-mercury seafood, the industry has taken the low road: Deny the
existence of any risk at all, attack and discredit those who disagree,
try to intimidate the press by challenging every report that mentions
risk. A particularly extreme example has been the continuing coverage of
actor Jeremy Piven, who in December got sick (exhaustion, memory, loss
balance problems) from the high levels of mercury he developed,
apparently as a result of eating a lot of tuna sushi, and withdrew from
the Broadway play . His physician said Piven’s blood mercury level was 60 parts per billion
(ppb), which is more than 10 times the EPA “reference level,” and his
symptoms were similar to those in other people who eat a lot of the
wrong kind of fish. His symptoms and his blood mercury level fit the
diagnosis. Yet the press was full of credulous interviews with
industry-friendly doctor who insisted, “It’s almost impossible to get
mercury poisoning from eating fish.” In fact it’s not hard at all. A 6-ounce swordfish steak contains
about 130 µg of mercury, or 16 days’ worth of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s reference dose for an adult man. A 5.5-ounce can of
albacore tuna contains 55 µg, a full week’s dose for an adult man. Even
canned light tuna, touted as a “low-mercury” fish by the industry (and
the FDA, after intense industry lobbying), has 18 µg of mercury in a 5.5
ounce can. For someone like Piven, who eats fish twice a day, those
µg’s can add up fast, and it’s easy to get a mercury dose far above the
reference dose. As a public service, let me then make the obvious point. If you eat a
lot of fish—which in America, means more than twice a week—you should
know what fish to choose to minimize your mercury exposure. The more
fish you eat, the more often you should choose from the low-mercury
list. Here’s a list of fish and seafood, sorted by mercury content,
based on data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Contain less than 0.05 part per million (ppm) mercury. Can safely be
eaten daily, or more often, without risk of exceeding reference dose:
salmon, tilapia, ocean perch, whiting, pollock, hake, flounder, sole, ,
haddock, sardines, herring, anchovies, catfish, Atlantic mackerel,
shrimp, clams, oysters, crayfish, scallops. Contain between 0.05 and 0.20 ppm mercury. Can be eaten once or twice
a week as long as other choices are from the low-mercury
group. American shad, cod, whitefish, Atlantic croaker, freshwater
trout, Pacific mackerel, canned “light” tuna, skate, freshwater perch,
monkfish, mahi-mahi, snapper, blue crab, king crab, snow crab, squid,
spiny lobster. Contain between 0.21 and 0.50 ppm mercury. Should be eaten only in
limited amounts (less than once a week) if you eat fish often: Canned
albacore tuna, tuna steak, sea bass, Chilean sea bass, halibut,
sablefish, sea trout, Pacific croaker, bluefish, Spanish mackerel,
grouper, marlin, orange roughy, American lobster. Contain more than 0.50 ppm mercury. Should be avoided by people who eat a lot of fish and by women of childbearing age: swordfish, shark, tilefish, king mackerel. |