I had been meaning to post about the New York Time's article that reported
on the findings of "Brain Food: Wahat Should Women Know About Mercury in
Fish", but someone else posted about a similar article. Thinking about the
cod's liver oil, vitamin A, autism connection, however, prompted me to
check this again for mercury levels in cod.

The report suggested that pregnant women (and they extrapolate to lactating
women) should avoid:
tuna (in the form of steaks), sea bass, oysters from the Gulf of mexico,
marlin, halibut, pike, walleye, white croaker, and largmouth bass.

Women should not eat more than one meal a month of:
canned tuna, mahi-mahi, blue mussels, Eastern oysters, ***COD***, pollock,
Great Lakes salmon, blue crab from the Gulf of Mexico, wild channel
catfish, and lack whitefish.

Is it a good idea to eat:
farmed trout, farmed catfish, fish sticks, summer flounder, wild Pacific
salmon, croaker, mid-Atlantic blue crab and haddock. Ship is on the list,
though there are serious environmental concerned related to shrimp fishing
and farming.

The woman I posted about was able to reduce her mercury levels with removal
of unsafe fish from her diet.  She did not need chelation therapy.


Given that there are some concerns about whether or not there is a
connection between mercury and autism, it seems to me that there are safer
alternatives to cod's liver oil, if the physician's clinical observations
about autism and vitamin A as reported by Jennifer Tow are born out. These
include: liver, eggs, (and for the vegetarians) pumpkin, dark orange
squash, carrots, mangos, papaya, peaches, nectarines, and dark green leafy
vegetables (if eaten with adequate oil or fat just to name a few. If the
improvement seen in these children is connected to DHA (which is again only
a conjecture - not at all proven as yet), the Brain Food report also
provides safer alternatives.

Susan Burger, PhD, MHS

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