Consumer Reports says NO Tuna for pregnant moms

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Consumer Reports Warns Pregnant Women Against Canned Tuna

<http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/07/consumer-reports-warns-on-mercury-in-cann\

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Pregnant women and children have long been warned that they should be wary of

eating certain kinds of seafood because of the risk of mercury contamination.

It's a real threat - mercury is a neurotoxin, and exposure in-utero at high

levels can damage an infant's developing cognitive skills.

Seafood can pose a danger because mercury - usually from the emissions of

coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources - can accumulate in the

tissue of fish, especially in predators high on the food chain. That includes

tuna, and white (albacore) tuna is known to be especially high in mercury. The

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) both recommend that women of childbearing age and young children should

eat no more than 12 ounces a week of light tuna, including 6 ounces of white

tuna.

But that may not be safe enough. Consumer Reports tested 42 samples of tuna

from cans bought in and around New York and found that white tuna usually

contains far more mercury than light tuna - and that women and children should

be even more cautious about eating the fish.

After analyzing the tests, the magazine's fish-safety experts concluded that

pregnant women should avoid eating ALL tuna as a precaution. Children over 45

lbs. should stick to no more than 12.5 ounces of light tuna or 4 ounces of

white tuna a week, while lighter children should have no more than 4 ounces of

light tuna or 1.5 ounces of white tuna. (Download a copy of the report here.)

Why the stricter warnings? Every sample that Consumer Reports tested had

measurable levels of mercury, ranging from 0.018 to 0.774 parts per million

(ppm). Samples of white tuna ranged from 0.217 ppm to 0.774 ppm and averaged

0.427 ppm - enough that by eating 2.5 ounces of any of the tested samples, a

woman would exceed the daily mercury intake considered safe by the EPA.

Samples of light tuna ranged from 0.018 ppm to 0.176 ppm. That's low on

average, but about half the tested samples contained enough mercury that eating

a single can would exceed the EPA's limit for women of child-bearing age.

Indeed, it's the outliers that pose a particular danger, not so much the

average. While light tuna especially on average doesn't contain that much

mercury, there's the danger of spikes in certain samples - and there's no way

for pregnant women to know if the canned tuna they're eating contains unusually

high levels of mercury. But the Consumer Reports study shows that it is a real

threat that cautious women should take seriously.

Of course, limiting your [overall] seafood intake has its own risks. Omega-3

fatty acids - found in fish - are thought to help in developing fetal nervous

systems, and they're well-known to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group, noted that none of the canned

tuna it tested - even the outliers - exceeded the FDA's allowable limit of 1

ppm or more. (That's the point at which the FDA is allowed to pull products

from the shelves, though that's never been done.) The group also noted -

cheekily - that Consumer Reports had apparently served tuna tartare at its

recent holiday party, so it can't be that dangerous.

Of course, the FDA's safety limits on mercury have long been considered too lax

- and compared to the rest of the world, they are. It will be a long time

before we have definitive science on just how much mercury pregnant women can

be exposed to without ill effect, but most people would agree that this is a

time for the precautionary principle.