Mercury is poison. And yet it is on dinner plates everywhere - insea bass served in restaurants, in tuna casserole ladled out at home.
Most of the time, there is so little that it goes unnoticed. Butthat doesn't mean the mercury in swordfish or shark, trout or snapperis harmless. Eat enough - or eat enough fish from especially pollutedwaters - and it can make you sick.
Too much mercury damages the nervous system, especially the brain.Too much in pregnant and breast-feeding women, or those who mightbecome pregnant, can hurt their babies - adversely affectingchildren's intelligence, coordination and memory. Children youngerthan 7 are vulnerable too, because their young brains are stillforming.
But how much is too much? And are adults at risk, as well?
Rising public concern about those questions, which have been inthe background for years, is now prompting public health officials tolook more seriously at mercury and at its effects.
After a four-year moratorium, the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration is set to decide later this month whether to resumemeasuring mercury in fish. The Environmental Protection Agency willhost a conference beginning Oct. 20 in Burlington, Vt., to discusscases in which people are believed to have been sickened by mercuryin fish.
State and federal officials disagree over what constitutes a safeexposure level; their programs for monitoring mercury in fish are anon-again, off-again hodgepodge full of scientific holes. There are nolong-term studies on Americans, and some of the studies that havebeen done are contradictory or involve people whose diets are fardifferent from what Americans eat.
There are those who say mercury in seafood is a menace, perhapsthe biggest threat to childhood development since scientistsdiscovered that lead exposure lowers IQ. They say that emissions fromoil- and coal-powered plants are spreading this poison to an alarmingdegree.
There are others who say the threat is overblown - that fish,loaded with protein and heart-healthy Omega 3 fatty acids, is so goodfor you it outweighs any concern.
The fact is, no one knows.
"We're all looking for the truth. I don't think anybody knows whatthe truth is," said Dr. Spencer Garrett of the National MarineFisheries Service.
"Fish fog"
Suzie Piallat has a name for it: "fish fog."
Piallat, of Tiburon, Calif., was tired and achy and she couldn'tconcentrate. Finally, she went to Dr. Jane Hightower, a San Franciscointernist.
When Hightower asked Piallat if she ate a lot of fish, she saidyes - eight meals each week. And when Hightower tested her blood, shefound mercury levels of 76 parts per billion, 15 times the amountconsidered safe by the federal Centers for Disease Control andPrevention.
"I'm a health nut, I've always done the healthy thing. I neverheard any of the warnings," Piallat said. "I thought eating fish wasgood for me."
Piallat - who cut back on her fish consumption, and soon feltbetter - can't be faulted for missing those warnings. It is onlyrecently that some doctors have reported that adult patients arebeing harmed by mercury in fish.
"I see people in my practice, sick from eating way too muchcommercial seafood, on a regular basis," said Hightower.
There are skeptics, and there is much confusion about safe levelsand whether they vary from person to person.
"It's not an absolute, like over this level everybody dies andbelow this level nobody gets sick," said Dr. Henry Anderson, medicalofficer at the Wisconsin Bureau of Public Health, who studied afamily contaminated with mercury after eating sea bass and other fishmeals three to four times per week.
"It's like being on a highway - how many miles above the limit canyou go without getting arrested? There are a lot of factors and somechance," Anderson said.
Dr. Michael Gochfeld, a clinical professor of environmental andcommunity medicine at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said he seestwo or three patients per year with elevated mercury levels fromeating too much mercury-laden fish.
"Ironically, these are usually health-conscious people who haveshifted their diets away from red meat to fish," he said. "Somepeople eat 10 fish meals a week."
The latest FDA guidelines recommend that pregnant women and smallchildren eat no more than two meals of fish each week.
"Fish is good for you," said Randy Ray, of the Pacific SeafoodProcessors Association of Mercer Island, Wash. "Pretty much most ofthe ocean is really, really safe. You've got some local water bodieswhich are an issue and some fish at the top of the food chain thatare an issue, but by and large, chow down on the shrimp."
Mercury warnings rise
What is beyond dispute is this: Mercury warnings for U.S. lakes,rivers and coastal regions increased 115 percent from 1993 to 2001.There are almost 2,000 mercury-in-fish warnings on various waterbodies in 44 states.
Mercury is a naturally occurring element found in the earth'scrust and sometimes exposed by volcanic eruptions, mining and otherdisturbances. More commonly, it makes its way into the environmentwhen oil- and coal-fired power plants burn those fossil fuels,separating the mercury from the carbon and spewing the mercury intothe atmosphere.
Rain washes the metal from the air onto land and into waterways,where it settles and is eaten by microorganisms that turn it intomethylmercury. Small fish then eat the organisms, absorb themethylmercury and are eaten by larger fish.
The methylmercury accumulates, making its way up the food chain inever increasing concentrations until people consume it.
If there is a consensus among scientists, it is that the mostvulnerable population by far is the very young, especially still-developing fetuses. Like lead, mercury can wreak havoc on the rapidlymultiplying cells of a growing brain, leading later in life todecreased intelligence, lowered coordination and impaired hearing.
"It's the chemical that can push the child over the edge," saidDr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the Mount Sinai medical school'sDepartment of Community and Preventative Medicine.
According to a National Academy of Sciences report issued in 2000,60,000 babies born each year might be at risk of neurological damagebecause of mercury, and that is likely to mean more kids who strugglein school and need remedial classes or special education.
Findings like these have led British authorities to recommend thatpregnant women abstain from eating any fish at all.
In Japan, where per-capita fish consumption far outpaces that inthe United States, researchers are just beginning to investigate theeffects of chronic, low-level mercury exposure. Studies haverepeatedly shown elevated mercury levels among the Japanese, as wellas medical problems in some people. However, a Health Ministryspokesman said the Japanese government does not issue any consumptionguidelines for specific foods.
In the United States, the FDA held a three-day conference in Julyand suggested pregnant women eat no more than two six-ounce cans oftuna a week - if that is the only source of fish in their diets - andonly one can if they eat other fish. The agency zeroed in on cannedtuna because it is by far the most popular seafood Americans eat.There is no evidence it is potentially any worse than many otherfish. Canned tuna has more mercury than scallops or catfish, forexample, but less than fresh tuna or lobster, according to a May 2001FDA report.
The FDA advises pregnant women not to eat any swordfish, shark,king mackerel or tilefish (also known as golden or white snapper),the species known to contain the highest levels of mercury.
But this is not enough for some doctors and activists, who saythat because of gaps in our knowledge about mercury, the standardsare little more than educated guesses.
They lament that the FDA stopped monitoring mercury in fish fouryears ago - "so that it could look at all the data that hadaccumulated," said spokesman Mike Herndon. Herndon did not say whymonitoring stopped during the evaluation.
"Without an adequate mercury monitoring program for seafood, it isvirtually impossible for pregnant women and women of reproductive ageto make informed dietary choices," said Dr. Ted Schettler, ofPhysicians for Social Responsibility.
U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., also has been among those pressingfor a stronger FDA effort.
Few know of risks
The Centers for Disease Control says one in 10 women havepotentially dangerous levels of mercury in their blood. Wendy Morowas one of them.
Moro, 40, of Burlingame, Calif., wanted to get healthy, so she atefish: Tuna for lunch. Crab salad for a snack. Sushi for dinner. Butthe more fish she ate, the sicker she felt.
For years, she visited doctors, neurologists, endocrinologists,general practitioners, even a psychologist who assured her she wasn'tcrazy. Just sick.
Finally Moro visited Hightower, the San Francisco internist whotested, among dozens of other items, the mercury levels in Moro'sblood.
What she found was three times the medically safe levels spelledout by the CDC.
"I was shocked," said Moro. "We're told to eat fish, we're toldit's great for you."
And that, to experts like Dr. Jae Hong Lee, former senior medicalpolicy analyst at the National Center for Policy Research for Womenand Families, is the crux of the problem. Not enough has been done todetermine the effects of mercury or the amount of mercury in fish -or to publicize the fact that there is reason for concern.
"The public knows about the benefits of eating fish," Lee said,"but few know about the risk of eating too much."
Copyright 2000 by Telegraph Herald, All rights Reserved.
Fish, mercury poisoning link gains attention; Research: Some warn pregnant women to avoid all seafood
Mercury is poison. And yet it is on dinner plates everywhere - insea bass served in restaurants, in tuna casserole ladled out at home.
Most of the time, there is so little that it goes unnoticed. Butthat doesn't mean the mercury in swordfish or shark, trout or snapperis harmless. Eat enough - or eat enough fish from especially pollutedwaters - and it can make you sick.
Too much mercury damages the nervous system, especially the brain.Too much in pregnant and breast-feeding women, or those who mightbecome pregnant, can hurt their babies - adversely affectingchildren's intelligence, coordination and memory. Children youngerthan 7 are vulnerable too, because their young brains are stillforming.
But how much is too much? And are adults at risk, as well?
Rising public concern about those questions, which have been inthe background for years, is now prompting public health officials tolook more seriously at mercury and at its effects.
After a four-year moratorium, the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration is set to decide later this month whether to resumemeasuring mercury in fish. The Environmental Protection Agency willhost a conference beginning Oct. 20 in Burlington, Vt., to discusscases in which people are believed to have been sickened by mercuryin fish.
State and federal officials disagree over what constitutes a safeexposure level; their programs for monitoring mercury in fish are anon-again, off-again hodgepodge full of scientific holes. There are nolong-term studies on Americans, and some of the studies that havebeen done are contradictory or involve people whose diets are fardifferent from what Americans eat.
There are those who say mercury in seafood is a menace, perhapsthe biggest threat to childhood development since scientistsdiscovered that lead exposure lowers IQ. They say that emissions fromoil- and coal-powered plants are spreading this poison to an alarmingdegree.
There are others who say the threat is overblown - that fish,loaded with protein and heart-healthy Omega 3 fatty acids, is so goodfor you it outweighs any concern.
The fact is, no one knows.
"We're all looking for the truth. I don't think anybody knows whatthe truth is," said Dr. Spencer Garrett of the National MarineFisheries Service.
"Fish fog"
Suzie Piallat has a name for it: "fish fog."
Piallat, of Tiburon, Calif., was tired and achy and she couldn'tconcentrate. Finally, she went to Dr. Jane Hightower, a San Franciscointernist.
When Hightower asked Piallat if she ate a lot of fish, she saidyes - eight meals each week. And when Hightower tested her blood, shefound mercury levels of 76 parts per billion, 15 times the amountconsidered safe by the federal Centers for Disease Control andPrevention.
"I'm a health nut, I've always done the healthy thing. I neverheard any of the warnings," Piallat said. "I thought eating fish wasgood for me."
Piallat - who cut back on her fish consumption, and soon feltbetter - can't be faulted for missing those warnings. It is onlyrecently that some doctors have reported that adult patients arebeing harmed by mercury in fish.
"I see people in my practice, sick from eating way too muchcommercial seafood, on a regular basis," said Hightower.
There are skeptics, and there is much confusion about safe levelsand whether they vary from person to person.
"It's not an absolute, like over this level everybody dies andbelow this level nobody gets sick," said Dr. Henry Anderson, medicalofficer at the Wisconsin Bureau of Public Health, who studied afamily contaminated with mercury after eating sea bass and other fishmeals three to four times per week.
"It's like being on a highway - how many miles above the limit canyou go without getting arrested? There are a lot of factors and somechance," Anderson said.
Dr. Michael Gochfeld, a clinical professor of environmental andcommunity medicine at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said he seestwo or three patients per year with elevated mercury levels fromeating too much mercury-laden fish.
"Ironically, these are usually health-conscious people who haveshifted their diets away from red meat to fish," he said. "Somepeople eat 10 fish meals a week."
The latest FDA guidelines recommend that pregnant women and smallchildren eat no more than two meals of fish each week.
"Fish is good for you," said Randy Ray, of the Pacific SeafoodProcessors Association of Mercer Island, Wash. "Pretty much most ofthe ocean is really, really safe. You've got some local water bodieswhich are an issue and some fish at the top of the food chain thatare an issue, but by and large, chow down on the shrimp."
Mercury warnings rise
What is beyond dispute is this: Mercury warnings for U.S. lakes,rivers and coastal regions increased 115 percent from 1993 to 2001.There are almost 2,000 mercury-in-fish warnings on various waterbodies in 44 states.
Mercury is a naturally occurring element found in the earth'scrust and sometimes exposed by volcanic eruptions, mining and otherdisturbances. More commonly, it makes its way into the environmentwhen oil- and coal-fired power plants burn those fossil fuels,separating the mercury from the carbon and spewing the mercury intothe atmosphere.
Rain washes the metal from the air onto land and into waterways,where it settles and is eaten by microorganisms that turn it intomethylmercury. Small fish then eat the organisms, absorb themethylmercury and are eaten by larger fish.
The methylmercury accumulates, making its way up the food chain inever increasing concentrations until people consume it.
If there is a consensus among scientists, it is that the mostvulnerable population by far is the very young, especially still-developing fetuses. Like lead, mercury can wreak havoc on the rapidlymultiplying cells of a growing brain, leading later in life todecreased intelligence, lowered coordination and impaired hearing.
"It's the chemical that can push the child over the edge," saidDr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the Mount Sinai medical school'sDepartment of Community and Preventative Medicine.
According to a National Academy of Sciences report issued in 2000,60,000 babies born each year might be at risk of neurological damagebecause of mercury, and that is likely to mean more kids who strugglein school and need remedial classes or special education.
Findings like these have led British authorities to recommend thatpregnant women abstain from eating any fish at all.
In Japan, where per-capita fish consumption far outpaces that inthe United States, researchers are just beginning to investigate theeffects of chronic, low-level mercury exposure. Studies haverepeatedly shown elevated mercury levels among the Japanese, as wellas medical problems in some people. However, a Health Ministryspokesman said the Japanese government does not issue any consumptionguidelines for specific foods.
In the United States, the FDA held a three-day conference in Julyand suggested pregnant women eat no more than two six-ounce cans oftuna a week - if that is the only source of fish in their diets - andonly one can if they eat other fish. The agency zeroed in on cannedtuna because it is by far the most popular seafood Americans eat.There is no evidence it is potentially any worse than many otherfish. Canned tuna has more mercury than scallops or catfish, forexample, but less than fresh tuna or lobster, according to a May 2001FDA report.
The FDA advises pregnant women not to eat any swordfish, shark,king mackerel or tilefish (also known as golden or white snapper),the species known to contain the highest levels of mercury.
But this is not enough for some doctors and activists, who saythat because of gaps in our knowledge about mercury, the standardsare little more than educated guesses.
They lament that the FDA stopped monitoring mercury in fish fouryears ago - "so that it could look at all the data that hadaccumulated," said spokesman Mike Herndon. Herndon did not say whymonitoring stopped during the evaluation.
"Without an adequate mercury monitoring program for seafood, it isvirtually impossible for pregnant women and women of reproductive ageto make informed dietary choices," said Dr. Ted Schettler, ofPhysicians for Social Responsibility.
U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., also has been among those pressingfor a stronger FDA effort.
Few know of risks
The Centers for Disease Control says one in 10 women havepotentially dangerous levels of mercury in their blood. Wendy Morowas one of them.
Moro, 40, of Burlingame, Calif., wanted to get healthy, so she atefish: Tuna for lunch. Crab salad for a snack. Sushi for dinner. Butthe more fish she ate, the sicker she felt.
For years, she visited doctors, neurologists, endocrinologists,general practitioners, even a psychologist who assured her she wasn'tcrazy. Just sick.
Finally Moro visited Hightower, the San Francisco internist whotested, among dozens of other items, the mercury levels in Moro'sblood.
What she found was three times the medically safe levels spelledout by the CDC.
"I was shocked," said Moro. "We're told to eat fish, we're toldit's great for you."
And that, to experts like Dr. Jae Hong Lee, former senior medicalpolicy analyst at the National Center for Policy Research for Womenand Families, is the crux of the problem. Not enough has been done todetermine the effects of mercury or the amount of mercury in fish -or to publicize the fact that there is reason for concern.
"The public knows about the benefits of eating fish," Lee said,"but few know about the risk of eating too much."
Copyright 2000 by Telegraph Herald, All rights Reserved.
