Mercury, often found in canned tuna, is a neurotoxin that builds up in large fish such as albacore tuna. The report recommends that all children avoid eating albacore tuna.
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Canned albacore tuna purchased by U.S. schools contains more mercury than what government officials have reported, raising the risks for some tuna-loving kids, according to a new study from a coalition of advocacy groups.
Children who eat two medium servings of albacore, or white, tuna per week could be exposed to as much as six times the dose that federal guidelines consider safe, according to the report prepared for the Mercury Policy Project. It is the first study to test the mercury content of tuna brands purchased by schools.
The report recommends that all children avoid eating albacore tuna. In addition, it advises children under 55 pounds to limit “light” tuna to one meal once a month, and twice a month for children over that weight.
Since 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency have recommended that pregnant and nursing women, women who may become pregnant and young children limit canned white tuna to six ounces per week. Light tuna – made from a species known as skipjack – contains less mercury so the government recommends no more than 12 ounces per week.
But the advocates say those recommendations are too lax because their tests show that "customers who choose canned albacore tuna may fairly frequently get mercury levels more than twice the FDA's average for the species," the report says.
Light tuna, on the other hand, was slightly lower in mercury than FDA tests have shown.
FDA officials and representatives of tuna companies were unavailable for comment on the findings.
Mercury is a neurotoxin that builds up in fish, particularly larger ones such as albacore tuna.
Because canned tuna is a cheap, nutritional food that is popular in schools, parents should rotate other fish into their children’s diet to reduce their risk of neurological effects, the report suggests.
“Most kids don’t eat that much tuna, so nothing really is needed to modify the behavior of a majority of kids,” said Ned Groth, co-author of the report and former senior scientist at the Consumers Union. “Kids who are probably above the ninetieth percentile in terms of how much tuna they eat, that’s where I’d focus my attention.”
Scientists not involved with the study generally agreed with the report’s advice.
“They are probably good, conservative recommendations,” said University of South Carolina assistant professor Jennifer Nyland, who studies mercury’s effects on autoimmune diseases.
A panel of scientists from the National Research Council concluded more than a decade ago that prenatal exposure to mercury reduces the mental abilities of children, including their motor skills, attention and IQs. The FDA and EPA fish consumption guidelines are based on 25 years of studies of effects in Faroe Islands children highly exposed to mercury in the womb.
There is little data, however, on the health risks for children, rather than their pregnant mothers, who eat tuna. Industry groups argue that kids have been eating tuna fish sandwiches for years with no apparent harm.
“Nobody can really say what the effects on children are, because nobody has really looked,” Groth said. “It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that a child is vulnerable to methylmercury poisoning, although there’s no epidemiological evidence right now.”
The groups’ recommendations for limiting kids’ consumption of light tuna are much more restrictive than any experts have recommended. Their goal was to keep kids’ mercury exposures within 25 percent of the EPA’s recommended “safe” dose, even though the EPA already has built a 10-fold margin of safety into that dose. Groth said that is a valid goal given the scientific uncertainty about the risks to children.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm baffled that neither you nor EHN included the list of tested tuna sources and results, so that we as consumers could take steps to limit our mercury exposure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObtaining this data and then not sharing is just irresponsible, especially since EHN indicates that not all light tuna was low in mercury and that some white tuna was lower than others, but is non-specific as to which products.
EHN also doesn't include a link to "the report prepared for the Mercury Policy Project," which is what they say the information is from.
Of course most of the time your articles refer to papers which are behind a paywall anyways (so it's no wonder much of the US population thinks there's a conspiracy of scientists to deceive the general population).
Go to mercurypolicy.org for more information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrafalgar,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCool your jets. Is your mind easily would up from too much mercury exposure? You want the list of companies that only catch the tunas with low mercury or something? The ones that use 'low mercury hooks'?
It's Skipjack, not Shipjack. As usual online, nobody proofreads anything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree. There is a conspiracy to expose the general population to mercury ,fluoride, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisalan6302,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've heard 'they' are doping us up with 'nitrogen' now too.
At least 85% of you scientifics are using your big brains to create objects of destruction...because small military brains but very wise are controling you...:-(
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll the children on this planet including ''yours'' are in danger...Why you do not use your big brain to find solutions: to decrease mercury in Nature, in fishes and in humans? Like a chemical or bio-chemical or genetic process to remove mercury from dead fishes? Sorry for the bad English, this is not my basic language.
I am glad that people are out there testing and questioning. Especially since Mercury and Lead (and other chemicals) damage may go well beyond what has been observed. Our minds/neurons are very sensitive and even minor disruptions can lead to harmful effects over long periods of time. More and more evidence mounts that we are all 'very mildly poisoned' in various ways. Over a month, no big deal. Over a lifetime... I don't really look forward to finding out but we'll have the results sometime (unfortunately 40 years late, probably).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I was young my mom told me not to eat too much canned food, because the process of sealing the cans brings heavy metal chemicals such as lead. It seems that the cans themselves are also bad for our health.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCanned food plays a important role in our life. Can we find some substitutes to produce cans which will be safer?
psst we're eating Fukijima tuna.
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