Popular Children’s Lunch Contains Hidden Danger, Groups Warn

Montpelier, VT, September 19th, 9 AM: Some children may be at greater risk from mercury in tuna than previously thought, finds a new study by the Mercury Policy Project (MPP). Tuna Surprise contains the first-ever test results of canned tuna sold to schools, and assesses children’s mercury exposure from canned tuna. Independent studies, not available when government advisories were issued eight years ago, indicate that adverse effects to methylmercury occur at much lower levels of exposure than previously thought. The report, co-released by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Safe Minds, and several other public health, consumer and environmental groups,1 advises schools and parents not to serve any albacore tuna to kids and to limit consumption of light tuna to twice a month for most kids and only once a month for smaller children (under 55 pounds).

“Most children are already consuming only modest amounts of tuna and are not at significant risk,” said Michael Bender, MPP’s director. “So the focus really needs to be on kids who eat tuna often, to limit their mercury exposure by offering them lower-mercury seafood or other nutritious alternatives.”

“Fish, including tuna, is generally a nutritious part of a healthy diet,” said Sarah Klein, staff attorney in the Food Safety program at CSPI. “But especially for our littlest, most vulnerable children, we have to make sure the risks from mercury in tuna don’t outweigh tuna’s benefits. We’re urging parents and schools to limit children’s tuna consumption and, when they do serve it, to choose lower-mercury options.”

“As the report states, light tuna has one-third as much mercury as albacore does,” added Eric Uram of Safe Minds. “But contrary to the current Federal fish consumption advisory, it is definitely not a low-mercury fish.”

Tuna Surprise points out that canned tuna is by far the largest source of methylmercury in the US diet and accounts for nearly one-third of Americans’ total exposure to this toxic mercury compound.

1 Other groups co-releasing the report include: Environmental Health Strategy Center, Got Mercury?, Clean Wisconsin, Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Massachusetts Clean Water Action, and the European Environmental Bureau.

MPP tested the mercury content of fifty-nine samples, representing eight brands of tuna, sold to schools in 11 states around the country.

“As far as we know, no one has previously tested this market sector,” said Bender. Testing showed that the tuna contains mercury levels similar to what other investigations have found in canned tuna sold in supermarkets. Albacore or “white” tuna had much higher mercury levels than did “light” tuna, and mercury levels in both types were highly variable.

Canned tuna is inexpensive and nutritious, a low-fat protein source, and a popular lunch food for kids. American kids eat twice as much tuna as they do any other kind of fish, and one out of every six US seafood meals is canned tuna. A tuna sandwich is an easy-to-fix parental favorite, and canned tuna is served through the federally subsidized school lunch program. And schools may be switching to leaner protein sources this fall as they implement the new school lunch standards2
Ned Groth, Ph.D., an environmental health scientist with over 40 years of experience, analyzed a variety of scenarios in which children of different ages ate different amounts of tuna with different mercury levels, and examined the relative exposure and risk from each scenario. Exposures in those scenarios ranged from less than one-quarter of to more than 40 times the current federal definition of safe exposure. “Kids who eat tuna frequently can easily get very high mercury doses,” says Groth. “Some of the larger doses are clearly far too high to be acceptable.”

“It’s a shame that such a great source of inexpensive protein is contaminated with mercury,” say Dr. Thomasson, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “To reduce risk, we need to both reduce children’s exposure to tuna and reduce mercury pollution the majority of which is from coal-burning power plants.”

While reducing mercury emissions will take years, parents and schools can manage risk now by being aware of children’s tuna consumption and taking steps, where necessary, to keep exposure to mercury low.

Tuna Surprise offers these recommendations (among others):

 Children should not eat albacore tuna. Albacore or “white” tuna contains triple the mercury level of light tuna; nothing justifies tripling a child’s mercury dose.

2 See: http://cspinet.org/nutritionpolicy/back2school.html

 Children weighing more than 55 pounds should not eat more than two servings of light tuna per month. This amount of tuna (six ounces) is more than the average child currently consumes; the mercury dose it contains is acceptably low in risk.

 Children up to 55 pounds should consume no more than one tuna meal per month. Because of their smaller body size, an added margin of caution is appropriate for younger children.
 “Tuna-loving” kids should be the focus of risk-management efforts. In particular:

 No child should eat tuna every day. (Tuna Surprise presents cases of children who did that, and were diagnosed with clinical methylmercury poisoning.)

 Parents and schools should offer children other seafood choices, such as shrimp and salmon, which are just as nutritious but contain far less mercury.

 The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s School Lunch Program should phase out commodity purchases of canned tuna, and replace it with lower-mercury alterative seafood items and other extra-lean protein sources.

 Parents should monitor their children’s canned tuna consumption at school and ensure that the total consumed at home and at school does not exceed the recommendations for exposure.
For more information:

http://mercuryfactsandfish.org/

http://blueocean.org/documents/2012/07/boi-mercury-report.pdf

Comments

[Heidi N]

I use to have MS symptoms, and so joined an MS forum. One thing noticed was the amount of people on there who were into tuna, as in really into tuna. I never ate tuna again. I also saw members leaving on a continual basis, saying that they found out their MS was actually Lyme Disease. I have also seen reports that Lyme and Syphilis make those ill who also have mercury exposure. So, just saying, there is a lot to this mercury issue, A LOT!!!!!!!!

[Benedetta]

Thanks Sue!
So the tuna is tested more because it is eaten more.

But Bob Mofitt puts it all in prospective for us.

[nonnymouse]

Small fish eat plankton, and/or tiny-tiny fish, and acquire just an infinitesimal amount of mercury from eating. Maybe they take in a little mercury every once in a while, or with every feeding -- depending on the location and other conditions.

Somewhat larger fish eat those small fish. Lots of small fish, over the space of a year or two or three. Any mercury from the small fish stay inside the larger fish. It "bioaccumulates."

Even larger fish eath those "somewhat larger" fishes. And in addition, the largest fish can live for years -- much longer opportunity for additional mercury intake.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has this chart:

HIGH MERCURY (eat three servings or less per month):

Bluefish
Grouper*
Mackerel (Spanish, Gulf)
Sea Bass (Chilean)*
Tuna (Canned Albacore)
Tuna (Yellowfin)*

HIGHEST MERCURY (avoid eating):

Mackerel (King)
Marlin*
Orange Roughy*
Shark*
Swordfish*
Tilefish*
Tuna (Bigeye, Ahi)*

[ and the asterisk means: "Fish in Trouble! These fish are perilously low in numbers or are caught using environmentally destructive methods."]

Someone mentioned dolphins, also. And hopefully we don't eat dolphins at all.

I remember seeing a report that someone was finding that, in the gut of dolphins, there was a morbillivirus -- a virus in the measles "family."

Looks like there is a link between mercury exposure and susceptibility to that kind of virus.

- - - - -

Blixenkrone-Moller M., et al. 1994. Comparative analysis of the gene encoding the nucleocapsid protein of dolphin morbillivirus reveals its distinct evolutionary relationship to measles virus and ruminant morbilliviruses. Journal of General Virology 75:2829-2834.

Blixenkrone-Moller, M., et al. 1996. Comparative analysis of the attachment protein gene (H) of dolphin morbillivirus. Virus Research 40:47-56.

Domingo, M., et al. 1990. Morbillivirus in dolphins. Nature 348:21.

I remember seeing reports about

[Donna L.]

Maybe someone should tell StarKist that if they repackage their tuna as prefilled syringes they won't notice a decline in sales. Quite the opposite, actually.

[Bob Moffitt]

" Children weighing more than 55 pounds should not eat more than two servings of light tuna per month. This amount of tuna (six ounces) is more than the average child currently consumes; the mercury dose it contains is acceptably low in risk."

So .. experts warn the weight of the child .. those less than 55 pounds .. should be considered before giving a child more than two servings of light tuna per month.

Do these same experts believe it is wise to give a flu vaccine containing mercury to a pregnant woman .. thereby exposing her unborn fetus to the mercury? After all .. what could the fetus possibly weigh at that state of development? In addition to weight .. wouldn't a child's age also contribute to the child's "acceptional exposure to tuna"?

It must be me .. but .. I think exposing a fetus to mercury via vaccine is far worse than warning parents against having a child weighing less than 55 pounds "consuming" a tuna sandwich every month.

But .. again .. that is just cynical old me.

[Sue]

To Bendetta,

Halibut, a bottom dwelling fish, does have high mercury levels. The extra attention to tuna is because it is consumed much more widely and frequently than other ocean fish. I am sure if large samples of cod and flounder were as carefully tested, they too would be found to have high mercury levels. It is not at the canneries, it is in the water then biomagnified through photoplankton, to zooplankton, to small fish, to larger fish. The higher an animal is on the food chain, the higher the concentration of mercury. The longest food chains in any ecosystem are found in the oceans. And some of the highest levels of mercury have been found in dolphins and whales. See the documentary The Cove for more info on that. And watch the trailer, too.

[Benedetta]

I do not understand this and never will - how tuna has mercury?????

Anyone with any ideas?
Tuna are pelagic feeders. They feed on the surface out in the middle of the ocean. They have mercury????

Where as the demersal fish that live and feed off the coast, live near or on the bottom like cod, and flounder -- where are the reports on them.

This does not make sense to me.

Is something going on at the canneries?
THe only thing I can think of is that the demersal fish have a lot less fish fat and the pelagic have more fish fat.
So perhaps mercury is held in the fat more.

[Zed]

Definition of IRONY

1
: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning.