Can the Tuna

The White Paper:

M. T. Bender. Director, Mercury Policy Project / A Project of the Tides Center, Montpelier, VT. The New England Zero Mercury Campaign. June 2003.
http://www.mercurypolicy.org/new/documents/CanTheTuna061903.pdf

Review This White Paper’s Executive Summary:
http://www.mercurypolicy.org/new/documents/CanTheTuna061903.pdf

The Purpose of this White Paper:
This white paper asks if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is properly protecting U.S. women who are pregnant, who may become pregnant, and their children who eat canned tuna fish (especially white/albacore tuna versus light tuna).

Some Background, Methods, Results, Caveats, and Other Select Points:

• This is not a peer-reviewed, scientific paper.
• This white paper was first publicly distributed in 2003.
• Some recent independent sampling of canned tuna purchased at some U.S. grocery stores reported finding that over six percent of white/albacore tuna samples contain methylmercury at or above the FDA’s methylmercury regulatory action level. These tests were paid for by the Mercury Policy Project.
• These same private methylmercury test results also found that amounts of methylmercury in the limited number of cans of white/albacore canned tuna privately tested had average methylmercury levels over four times higher than the limited number of cans of light tuna privately tested here.
• The average methylmercury levels in these private, limited tests were low. Based on these methylmercury tests, pregnant women who routinely consume albacore/white canned tuna with mercury levels above 0.5 ppm methylmercury—the average amount of methylmercury reported in these privately paid-for limited tests —are exposed to methylmercury levels that greatly exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) methylmercury regulatory reference dose. This is yet another example of just how very low the EPA’s methylmercury regulatory reference dose is.
• The EPA methylmercury regulatory reference dose applies only to sport or recreational fish such as those you and/or your neighbors catch, and not to commercial such as all canned tuna sold in the United States.
• The paper lists several recommendations of these authors:
  1. Women who are pregnant - or considering pregnancy - and nursing mothers should not eat white/albacore canned tuna to protect their developing children in the womb and their young children from methylmercury exposure. As a precautionary measure, these authors believe that parents should prevent their infants and/or young children from eating white/albacore tuna.
  2. To ensure that some people (unborn children and young children) who are especially sensitive to methylmercury exposure are protected in the long term, these authors believe that the Food and Drug Administration should adopt stricter methylmercury regulations.
  3. These authors believe that the World Health Organization (WHO) should adopt the more protective EPA’s regulatory reference dose for human exposure to methylmercury.
  4. These authors believe that all manmade mercury uses and releases into the environment globally should be reduced or eliminated, mercury exports curtailed, and surplus quantities of mercury placed indefinitely in secure, long-term, monitored above-ground storage to reduce mercury levels in the environment and in fish over time.
• These authors believe that some FDA officials acknowledge that none of the existing scientific studies of methylmercury exposure in people clearly show the level at which the developing unborn child is not affected by methylmercury exposure.

A Bottom Line:
These two activists groups believe that the FDA is not adequately protecting U.S. women who are pregnant, who may become pregnant, and their children who consume canned tuna - especially white/albacore tuna versus light tuna.

Find This White Paper for Your Review:
Can the Tuna. http://www.mercurypolicy.org/new/documents/CanTheTuna061903.pdf