MERCURY MENACE
October 20, 2002
The Associated Press
Sharon L. Crenson
BURLINGTON, Vt. -- San Francisco internist Dr. Jane Hightower was cited as
telling a symposium of environmental health experts in Vermont Saturday that
a study of Californians who loaded their lunch and dinner menus with fish
shows 89 percent wound up with elevated mercury levels in their bodies.
The story says that doctors are increasingly interested in the possible
risks of eating too much mercury-tainted fish, and the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration are trying to better
inform the public about the subject.
It is a thorny problem because of the widely recognized benefits of fish, a
high quality protein source loaded with heart-protecting Omega 3 fatty
acids.
Conference participants didn't seem panicked about the findings: The
majority ordered salmon for dinner Saturday -- though salmon is considered
among the safest types of fish to eat.
EPA's Kathryn Mahaffey, one of the conference organizers, was quoted as
saying, "We are not talking about whether or not to eat fish."
Hightower screened 720 patients from March 2000 to March 2001, then tested
the mercury levels of patients who reported eating more than two servings of
fish a week. That's the maximum the EPA recommends for pregnant women and
small children.
The tests showed that of 116 patients who had their blood tested, 89 percent
showed mercury levels greater than the 5 parts per million recognized as
safe by the National Academy of Sciences.
Of that group, 63 people had blood mercury levels more than twice the
recommended level and 19 showed blood mercury levels four times the level
considered safe. Four people had mercury levels 10 times as high as the
government recommends.
The peer-reviewed study is slated for publication Nov. 1 in the journal
Environmental Health Perspectives.