here is the first half of a long email on pollution and fish. the
second half is being sent separately b/c the whole post is too long:
I follow the Environmental Working Group info and Dr. Mercola's info
on safe fish b/c (as EWG says) "By advising against the consumption
of just four types of fish, FDA allows heavy consumption
of many fish that have unacceptably high methylmercury levels. To
protect women and their babies from methylmercury, the FDA must add
the following species to the list of seafood that should not be eaten
by pregnant women, nursing women, and women considering pregnancy":
http://www.mercola.com/2001/apr/25/mercury_fish.htm
Summer Flounder
Wild Pacific (alaskan) Salmon
Croaker
Sardines
Haddock
Tilapia
<<By Ken Cook, President of the Environmental Working Group
Fish is beyond compare as a source of many nutrients vital to the
developing infant, some of which may actually enhance development of
the nervous system in babies and young children.
Widespread contamination of fish with toxic mercury, however, has cast
a shadow over the nutritional benefits of fish.
Exposure to mercury in the womb can cause learning deficits, delay the
mental development of children, and cause other neurological problems.
Mercury consumed by a pregnant woman through contaminated fish can
cross her placenta to damage the brain of her baby.
As a National Academy of Sciences panel definitively warned last year,
some children exposed in utero by their mothers' fish consumption are
at risk of falling in the group of children "who have to struggle to
keep up in school and who might require remedial classes of special
education."
....snip....
As a result, women who eat a lot of fish during pregnancy, or even as
little as a single serving of a highly contaminated fish, can expose
their developing child to excessive levels of mercury. The toxic metal
can cross the placenta to harm the rapidly developing nervous system,
including the brain
....snip...
Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration came up with its
own list of fish that pregnant and nursing women, along with infants,
should avoid. Based on our analysis of much more extensive fish
contamination records, the list presented in this report is more
complete.
...snip...
What they found is disturbing: while some states are doing a better
job than others, virtually no fish advisories for mercury
contamination are adequately protective of human health when judged
against current scientific knowledge.
The importance of this new understanding about mercury risks was
evidenced in a landmark study on blood levels of mercury and other
toxins, released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in March, 2001.
While "average" blood mercury levels among women were not of concern,
the data indicate that in fully 10 percent of American women --
roughly 7 million women -- mercury levels were above the dose that may
put a fetus at risk for adverse nervous system effects.
Those women surely don't need more mercury in their system, least of
all if they are already pregnant or nursing. As this report
recommends, the government must start monitoring such exposures, and
any possible effects, much more energetically. This is a simple,
common sense matter of public health.
In the longer term, the solution is to halt mercury pollution from
coal-burning power plants and other sources so the contamination of
fish is avoided in the first place. Fuel switching -- from coal to
renewable energy sources -- along with aggressive deployment of
conservation measures, makes sense for any number of reasons.
Fish free of mercury -- the way they used to be -- is just another one.
Executive Summary
On January 12, 2001, government health officials issued new advisories
warning women to limit fish consumption during pregnancy to avoid
exposing their unborn children to unsafe levels of methylmercury.
Methylmercury can cross the placenta and cause learning deficits and
developmental delays in children who are exposed even to relatively
low levels in the womb. The principal exposure route for the fetus is
fish consumption by the mother.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates commercially
sold fish, recommends that pregnant and nursing women and young
children not eat any shark, swordfish, tilefish, or king mackerel, but
then recommends 12 ounces per week of any other fish.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which makes recommendations
to states about safe mercury levels in sport fish, allows up to 8
ounces of any fish per week for pregnant women with no prohibitions on
consumption of any individual fish caught recreationally.
These restrictions are steps in the right direction, but they need to
be tightened significantly to adequately protect women and their
unborn children from the toxic effects of methylmercury.
The nutritional benefits of fish complicate the task faced by health
officials when protecting the public from methylmercury. Protein,
omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D, and other nutrients make fish an
exceptionally good food for pregnant mothers and their developing
babies.
At the same time, there is no doubt that methylmercury is toxic to the
fetal brain and nervous system, and that many beneficial fish species
are contaminated. EPA's safe exposure estimate for methylmercury has
dropped twice in the past 16 years, as new science has identified
adverse effects in children exposed in the womb at lower and lower
doses.
Emerging evidence indicates that the safe dose may drop even lower in
the future (NAS 2000). Just how long a fetus can tolerate a dose of
methylmercury above a "safe level' with no observable adverse effects
is a matter of ongoing debate.
....snip....
But if American women ate a varied diet of FDA's recommended 12 ounces
of fish a week (and none of the four prohibited fish) they would
expose more than one-fourth of all babies born each year (1 million
infants) to a potentially harmful dose of methylmercury for at least
one month during pregnancy.
About 20,000 of these children would be exposed to a dose of
methylmercury that increases the risk of adverse neurological effects
for the entire pregnancy.
....snip....
The broader issue with recreational fish, however, is whether these
advisories translate into conscious choices by pregnant mothers to
avoid eating contaminated fish. There is a substantial body of
evidence indicating that they do not (Golden et al 2001).
Recommendations
Fish provide important health benefits to the developing fetus, and
pregnant women should be encouraged to eat fish with consistently low
methylmercury levels. With too many species, however, these
nutritional pluses are outweighed by the hazards of methylmercury.
Federal health authorities need to take much stronger steps to protect
a far greater portion of the population. They must move beyond their
antiquated safeguards designed to protect an average woman from an
average amount of methylmercury in fish and take a realistic and
protective stance against dietary exposure to methylmercury.>>
continued in separate email......
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