Consumers Reports recommendation on tuna creates brouhaha
August 21, 2014 | 05:46 PM
Consumers Reports’ release today of a study recommending that pregnant women avoid all tuna has created sharp negative reactions from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Fisheries Institute.
Earlier this year FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency recommended that because fish is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients, women of child-bearing age and young children should eat more lower-mercury fish.
While Consumer Reports agrees that eating fish can be healthy, the magazine said pregnant women following that recommendation are in danger of getting too much mercury, which can damage the brain and nervous system.
Jean Halloran
“We’re particularly concerned about canned tuna, which is second only to shrimp as the most commonly eaten seafood in the United States. We encourage pregnant women to avoid all tuna,” said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports.
FDA and EPA set a firm minimum level for weekly fish consumption, including shellfish, and recommended that women who are pregnant, breast-feeding or trying to become pregnant eat between 8 and 12 ounces of fish per week.
Using FDA data, Consumer Reports recommended that pregnant women and children stick to 20 types of seafood with the lowest mercury levels including salmon (Alaskan or other wild), scallops, shrimp (most wild and U.S. farmed), tilapia and more; low-mercury options include catfish, crab, flounder and sole (flatfish), and trout.
FDA said in a statement today that “The Consumer Reports analysis is limited in that it focuses exclusively on the mercury levels in fish without considering the known positive nutritional benefits attributed to fish. As a result, the methodology employed by Consumer Reports overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade.”
“This is particularly concerning as a 2012 FDA survey found that one in five pregnant women were not eating any fish for long periods of time during pregnancy,” FDA continued.
“And 75 percent of women were eating fewer than four ounces per week. Studies with pregnant women in particular have consistently found that fish is important for growth and development before birth.”
FDA noted that its advice “is based on new science indicating that eating more fish can have important growth and developmental benefits and that these benefits can outweigh the risk of methylmercury exposure.”
“The advice is consistent with the recommendations provided in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” the agency added.
The National Fisheries Institute said Consumer Reports “is flat-out wrong” because its methodology “overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade.”
“The new FDA/EPA advice Consumer Reports mentions was created based on a newly released published, peer-reviewed FDA study that looked at 110 mercury-in-fish studies,” said NFI, which represents the fishing and seafood industry.
“That brand-new work completely contradicts the Consumer Reports-created calculations. The FDA’s own calculations conclude that in the most conservative estimation pregnant women could eat up to 56 ounces of canned albacore tuna in a single week and that as a minimum they should actually strive for 8 ounces while Consumer Reports suggests zero ounces.”
“Consumer Reports is dangerously out of touch with science on this matter,” NFI concluded. “This is not about Consumer Reports and ‘industry’ disagreeing. It is about Consumer Reports promoting its own reckless, hyperbolic, quasi-science and in the process damaging its own credibility.”
Marion Nestle
Finally, Marion Nestle, the prominent New York University nutrition professor, noted in her Food Politics blog today that she had questioned FDA’s recommendation that pregnant women should eat a lot of seafood, and was surprised that FDA said they should avoid the four fish highest in methylmercury — shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish — but did not mention albacore tuna.
Nestle noted that in her 2006 book “What to Eat,” she had included a chapter entitled “The Methylmercury Dilemma” that albacore tuna belonged on the FDA list of fish to avoid, and that it had been kept off the list by the fishing industry.
“Consumer Reports tells us that pretty much all tuna is too high in methylmercury to be consumed by pregnant women,” Nestle wrote, and asked “So this comment still seems relevant, no?”
▪ Consumer Reports — Special report: Can eating the wrong fish put you at higher risk for mercury exposure?
▪ — How to reduce your mercury exposure from seafood
▪ FDA — June 2014: Pregnant Women and Young Children Should Eat More Fish
▪ — Fish: What Pregnant Women and Parents Should Know — June 2014 Draft Updated Advice
▪ Food Politics — Mercury in fish, again: Watch out for tuna
Earlier this year FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency recommended that because fish is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients, women of child-bearing age and young children should eat more lower-mercury fish.
While Consumer Reports agrees that eating fish can be healthy, the magazine said pregnant women following that recommendation are in danger of getting too much mercury, which can damage the brain and nervous system.
“We’re particularly concerned about canned tuna, which is second only to shrimp as the most commonly eaten seafood in the United States. We encourage pregnant women to avoid all tuna,” said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports.
FDA and EPA set a firm minimum level for weekly fish consumption, including shellfish, and recommended that women who are pregnant, breast-feeding or trying to become pregnant eat between 8 and 12 ounces of fish per week.
Using FDA data, Consumer Reports recommended that pregnant women and children stick to 20 types of seafood with the lowest mercury levels including salmon (Alaskan or other wild), scallops, shrimp (most wild and U.S. farmed), tilapia and more; low-mercury options include catfish, crab, flounder and sole (flatfish), and trout.
FDA said in a statement today that “The Consumer Reports analysis is limited in that it focuses exclusively on the mercury levels in fish without considering the known positive nutritional benefits attributed to fish. As a result, the methodology employed by Consumer Reports overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade.”
“This is particularly concerning as a 2012 FDA survey found that one in five pregnant women were not eating any fish for long periods of time during pregnancy,” FDA continued.
“And 75 percent of women were eating fewer than four ounces per week. Studies with pregnant women in particular have consistently found that fish is important for growth and development before birth.”
FDA noted that its advice “is based on new science indicating that eating more fish can have important growth and developmental benefits and that these benefits can outweigh the risk of methylmercury exposure.”
“The advice is consistent with the recommendations provided in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” the agency added.
The National Fisheries Institute said Consumer Reports “is flat-out wrong” because its methodology “overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade.”
“The new FDA/EPA advice Consumer Reports mentions was created based on a newly released published, peer-reviewed FDA study that looked at 110 mercury-in-fish studies,” said NFI, which represents the fishing and seafood industry.
“That brand-new work completely contradicts the Consumer Reports-created calculations. The FDA’s own calculations conclude that in the most conservative estimation pregnant women could eat up to 56 ounces of canned albacore tuna in a single week and that as a minimum they should actually strive for 8 ounces while Consumer Reports suggests zero ounces.”
“Consumer Reports is dangerously out of touch with science on this matter,” NFI concluded. “This is not about Consumer Reports and ‘industry’ disagreeing. It is about Consumer Reports promoting its own reckless, hyperbolic, quasi-science and in the process damaging its own credibility.”
Finally, Marion Nestle, the prominent New York University nutrition professor, noted in her Food Politics blog today that she had questioned FDA’s recommendation that pregnant women should eat a lot of seafood, and was surprised that FDA said they should avoid the four fish highest in methylmercury — shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish — but did not mention albacore tuna.
Nestle noted that in her 2006 book “What to Eat,” she had included a chapter entitled “The Methylmercury Dilemma” that albacore tuna belonged on the FDA list of fish to avoid, and that it had been kept off the list by the fishing industry.
“Consumer Reports tells us that pretty much all tuna is too high in methylmercury to be consumed by pregnant women,” Nestle wrote, and asked “So this comment still seems relevant, no?”
▪ Consumer Reports — Special report: Can eating the wrong fish put you at higher risk for mercury exposure?
▪ — How to reduce your mercury exposure from seafood
▪ FDA — June 2014: Pregnant Women and Young Children Should Eat More Fish
▪ — Fish: What Pregnant Women and Parents Should Know — June 2014 Draft Updated Advice
▪ Food Politics — Mercury in fish, again: Watch out for tuna
