Story Published:
Feb 16, 2006 at 9:03 AM PDT
Story Updated:
Aug 31, 2006 at 2:12 AM PDT
SEATTLE - Some halibut and Pacific red snapper sold at
supermarkets contain so much mercury that consumption should be
limited, according to a Washington state Health Department survey.
According to findings reported Wednesday in the first statewide
testing of fish from grocery stores, children and women of
childbearing age should eat no more than one meal a week of those
two species because of contamination with mercury, a brain poison,
based on Environmental Protection Agency guidelines..
Previous reports on the levels of contamination in fish covered
only those found in rivers, lakes and marine waters, so the study
was ordered last year because "we really don't have a handle on
what the levels are," said David E. McBride, a state toxicologist.
The Food and Drug Administration limits the level of mercury and
PCBs in fish sold in retail outlets but does only limited checking,
and state health officials said they considered that agency's
limits too high.
Nonetheless, most fish are safe to eat in moderate amounts and a
beneficial part of a regular diet, health officials emphasized.
"Fish are great food," said James A. VanDerslice, a state
Health Department epidemiologist. "We want everybody to be eating
the recommended two meals a week, but there are contaminants."
"Whatever you eat has good things and bad things," said Glenn
Reed, president of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association. "It
seems that the vast body of evidence is that seafood is one of the
healthiest proteins you can eat."
For the survey, Health Department workers bought canned tuna and
fresh fillets of eight species of fish to test for mercury,
polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and polybrominated diphenyl
ethers, or PBDEs, flame retardants that accumulate in the body.
The most mercury was found in canned albacore tuna, the subject
of earlier federal warnings. According to EPA guidelines, women and
children should eat no more than four cans a month.
There has been no similar federal warning about Pacific red
snapper and halibut.
The lowest levels of mercury were found in catfish, pollock,
salmon, flounder and cod.
Chinook or king salmon topped the list for PCBs, a long-banned
chemical linked to cancer and impaired brain development, but
experts remain divided on the risk.
State health officials said the salmon PCB levels were too low
to pose any danger to brain development if consumed in two servings
a week.
Some environmentalists noted that according to EPA guidelines,
eating salmon with that much PCB more than once a month could
increase the risk of cancer, but Robert M. Duff, director of the
state Office of Environmental Health Assessments, said that
standard is more dubious because it is based on research on animals
rather than on humans.
