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Defenders in Action: Is Tuna Family-Safe?
Americans have long demanded that their tuna be "dolphin-safe," but mounting evidence of high levels of mercury in tuna and other fish is raising another serious concern about human safety, according to a new Defenders of Wildlife report.
The report, Is Our Tuna Family-Safe? details how mercury--emitted from power plants, deposited in waterways and accumulated in fish--is a potent poison linked to human health problems ranging from brain damage and neurological impairment in children to memory loss and heart attacks in adults. The report raises new questions about the safety of "light tuna," generally thought to be a low-mercury fish. It's also the first to look specifically at mercury levels in canned tuna imported into the United States. Government guidelines for eating tuna are based on tests of largely American brands, even though 51 percent of canned tuna in the United States comes from foreign sources.
"Given its popularity, canned tuna is the largest dietary source of mercury exposure in the United States," says Kelly Malsch, Defenders' international conservation coordinator and co-author of the report.
Commissioned by Defenders, the independent study of tuna cans from around the country found that eating just one six-ounce can of tuna a week would cause an average-sized, 140-pound woman--and nearly all children--to exceed the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's recommended maximum allowable dose of mercury. Given the prevalence of tuna in the school lunch program and other government-sponsored efforts for the poor, the government may be inadvertently putting disadvantaged women and children at greater risk of mercury exposure. It also found that tuna from Ecuador and Mexico--countries with a documented history of dolphin-unsafe fishing--had the highest mercury concentrations of all samples tested. "Based on the tuna we sampled, it is reasonable to infer that 'dolphin-deadly' fishing, which generally catches larger yellowfin tuna, results in higher mercury concentrations than tuna caught by other means," says Malsch. "Our results also suggest that the Bush administration's efforts to weaken the dolphin-safe label may have serious and unintended consequences for public health." To read the report online, visit www.defenders.org/tunamercury.
