Saving Seafood

Everybody knows to avoid tuna when pregnant, right? Not so fast. Eating tuna might actually yield better results, says a large new study.

November 26, 2019 — Eating ocean fish is good for you, but some fish have significant levels of methylmercury which is bad for you, so you should avoid those fish, right? Wrong, says a new study.

Mothers who ate seafood, even when it contained high levels of methyl mercury, had smarter kids than those who didnʻt eat seafood, says the comprehensive, peer-reviewed study.

“Moderate and consistent evidence indicates that consumption of a wide range of amounts and types of commercially available seafood during pregnancy is associated with improved neurocognitive development of offspring as compared to eating no seafood,” it said.

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom, and some medical wisdom. Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommend against pregnant women eating ahi, over concerns about methyl mercury exposure.

There is no question that thereʻs methylmercury in yellowfin, bigeye and bluefin tuna, and that the amount has been increasing in recent years. There are also significant amounts of mercury in blue marlin and other species.

The Hawai`i Department of Health warns against pregnant women eating any blue marlin, swordfish and shark and recommends severe limits on consumption of tunas.

Read the full story at Raising Islands

Pregnant mothers and children should eat seafood

November 15, 2019 — Two recent studies, Hibbeln et al. 2019 & Spiller et al. 2019, published together in Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids (PLEFA), examined the health benefits of consuming seafood during pregnancy. Researchers found that seafood consumption during pregnancy was strongly linked to increased IQ in children.

Thirteen leading dietary scientists spent the last two decades conducting the most thorough review on the subject in history. The research evaluated studies on 102,944 mother-child pairs and 25,301 children.

The findings strongly supported what many consumers already know—seafood is good for you. But the specific measurements to this notion were striking, so much so that one of the authors warned SeafoodNews.com, “There is a lost opportunity for IQ when mothers are not eating enough seafood.”

The study found children gain an average of 7.7 IQ points when mothers ate seafood during pregnancy, compared to mothers that did not eat seafood. Another finding showed that children born from mothers who did not eat seafood during pregnancy were three times more likely to be hyperactive.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Climate change and overfishing are boosting toxic mercury levels in fish

November 11, 2019 — We live in an era—the Anthropocene—where humans and societies are reshaping and changing ecosystems. Pollution, human-made climate change and overfishing have all altered marine life and ocean food webs.

Increasing  temperatures are amplifying the accumulation of neurotoxic contaminants such as organic mercury (methylmercury) in some marine life. This especially affects top predators including marine mammals such as fish-eating killer whales that strongly rely on large fish as seafood for energy.

Now the combination of  pollution, climate change and overfishing are conspiring together to further contaminate marine life and food webs. This has obvious implications for ecosystems and the ocean, but also for public health. The risk of consuming mercury-contaminated fish and seafood is growing with climate change.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Pro-seafood scientists push to knock mercury warnings out of US Dietary Guidelines

September 23, 2019 — More than a dozen seafood-loving scientists are working to make the message contained in the US’ next update of its “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” even stronger when it comes to encouraging consumption by pregnant mothers and young children.

Their lengthy research paper, which cites some 40 studies that paint a very positive picture of seafood, is expected to be published within weeks in a peer-reviewed journal. Immediately after, the group plans to share its meta-study with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, another 20 academics that make recommendations to the US departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services (USDA and HHS), about what should go into the document that has the most influence when it comes establishing nutrition policy in the country.

The hope: USDA and HHS altogether strike the current document’s mercury warnings and also the suggestion that seafood consumption be limited to 12 ounces per week from the language.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Mercury levels in seafood found to be affected by climate change and ecosystem shifts

August 15, 2019 — Mercury levels in seafood can shift as fish seek new sources of prey and as water temperatures warm due to climate change, according to a recent study.

The new study, published in Nature, illustrates that even as global human-driven mercury emissions are declining, warming oceans and shifting predator-prey relationships caused by human fishing practices could still be major drivers of mercury in seafood.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Research forms complex picture of mercury pollution in a period of global change

February 15, 2019 — Climate change and the loss of wetlands may contribute to increased levels of mercury concentrations in coastal fish, according to a Dartmouth College study.

The finding implies that forces directly associated with global change — including increased precipitation and land use modifications — will raise levels of the toxic metal that enter the marine food chain.

Estuaries, including coastal wetlands, provide much of the seafood that is harvested for human consumption and also serve as important feeding grounds for larger marine fish.

The study, published in late December in the journal Environmental Pollution, adds to the mounting body of research that indicates a complex relationship between the environment and mercury pollution.

“Estuaries provide habitat for the fish that feed our families,” said Celia Chen, director of the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program. “It’s important to understand how mercury acts within our environment, particularly under increasing climate and land use pressures.”

The Dartmouth study concludes that higher levels of mercury, and its toxic form methylmercury, are associated with higher organic carbon in coastal waters. The study also finds that this results in higher levels of mercury occurring in fish that frequent these waters.

Read the full story at Science Daily

New England States Fear Increased Mercury Contamination As EPA Considers Weakening Rules

December 18, 2018 — Scientists are speaking out about what they say have been “remarkable improvements” in curbing mercury emissions under Obama-era regulations that are now under threat by the Trump administration.

Mercury is a toxic chemical most commonly associated with coal-burning power plants. Because they are downwind from coal-burning states, Maine and the rest of New England have traditionally had higher-than-average rates of mercury contamination, and scientists say a proposal to weaken emission rules could impede progress.

The coal industry considers the 2011 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, known as MATS, the most expensive air pollution regulation ever implemented and responsible for the closure of dozens of coal plants around the country. Acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler is a former coal lobbyist, and now the EPA is proposing to weaken MATS by heavily weighing costs to the industry.

The EPA maintains that the Obama administration was indifferent toward that side of the equation. But scientists say the agency is downplaying the health and environmental benefits of the rule across the country.

“The reductions in emissions of mercury in the U.S. since 2006 have decreased about 85 percent,” says Dr. Charlie Driscoll, a professor at Syracuse University who spoke to reporters in a teleconference on Monday.

Most of the emissions Driscoll’s referring to came from coal-fired power plants, and he says much of the reason for their reduction can be attributed to the MATS rules.

“We’ve seen decreases in mercury in air, in atmospheric deposition, in water, in soil and we’ve seen declines in both freshwater fisheries in the U.S. in mercury as well as marine fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean,” he says.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that is especially harmful to children and developing fetuses, which is why the Maine Bureau of Health has a freshwater fish consumption advisory for pregnant women, nursing mothers and kids under 8.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Not All Fish Puts You at Risk of Mercury Poisoning

June 7, 2018 — If you’ve ever eaten sushi, you may be familiar with rumors and rumblings about how eating too much can give you mercury poisoning. Pregnant women are typically advised to steer clear of any spicy tuna roll cravings because.

It has to be dangerous to eat too much of a certain kind of fish, right? Well, sort of. Mercury poisoning, and fear of it, is laced with misconceptions, in part because the metal comes in different forms and thus, has different modes of poisoning someone.

Mercury is a natural metal found in the earth, Judith Zelikoff, a professor in NYU’s School of Medicine’s department of environmental medicine, told The Daily Beast. It’s potentially dangerous to ingest because it inhibits inhibits selenoenzymes, which protect the immune system, causing toxicity. Methylmercury is the most common type of organic mercury that is found in the earth and what is commonly in fish that most commonly leads to mercury poisoning. There’s also inorganic mercury, or elemental mercury, that is found in old-school thermometers.

“The problem comes from environmental exposures,” Zelikoff said, pointing to mercury-containing coal combustion as the problem. “So when [coal] is burned and combusted, it gets into the air. Once it’s in the air it falls to the ground, not only to the soil but also to the surface of water and rivers and lakes.

Read the full story at The Daily Beast

Muddled communications on mercury causing consumer confusion

June 6, 2018 — It’s a rare occasion when representatives of industry, academia, and government all agree.

The fact that the U.S. seafood industry, an army of health experts, and the U.S. government all want to see the country’s population consume more seafood is a sign of how universal the agreement is surrounding the health benefits of seafood consumption.

But in seeking to achieve that objective, consensus often breaks down over the best way to communicate the benefits to consumers. One of the biggest points of division is the issue of mercury contamination in fish, since scientific studies on the potential harm of mercury in seafood are often conflicting and a source of frustration to consumers.

Jay Shimshack, an asssociate professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia and an expert in environmental and health policy, told SeafoodSource the problem lies with the way policymakers frame the message when issuing health advisories.

“Fish consumption advice is often complex and confusing. Message-framing matters a lot, and real-world constraints like affordability are as important as the true risks and benefits,” Shimshack said.

Consumers are told eating a variety of fish can be good for them, Shimshack said.

“But [they are told], ‘Do not consume some species [and be] careful not to consume too much of other species,’” Shimshack said. “Current U.S. commercial fish advisories list more than 60 species, and species names are not always consistent from one time and place to the next.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Gloucester Times: We all play a role in limiting mercury pollution

April 27, 2017 — Mercury poses a dangerous threat to people and the environment, and northeastern Massachusetts has been tainted by higher-than-normal levels of the heavy metal. Those of us who live here — let alone catch and eat fish here — depend on efforts to contain the toxic element – including by making sure old thermostats, fluorescent bulbs and similar products don’t wind up in landfills.

But with shared interest comes shared responsibility, and none of us should need a financial reward to do the right thing for ourselves, each other or the environment.

That’s the suggestion of some green groups, however, when they criticize Massachusetts’ law on mercury disposal and an industry-organized effort to collect devices that contain the metal.

They point to incentives required by other New England states that force makers of thermostats and light bulbs to offer rewards to consumers and contractors to recycle old mercury products. In Maine, the rebate is $5.

Those programs come at a cost, either for the state and taxpayers or for manufacturers. And they don’t move the needle of recycling, according to industry representatives. It’s hard to imagine such small rebates swaying enough people to make a difference.

A spokesman for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, in media reports when Massachusetts updated its mercury law two and a half years ago, derisively called the payments a “bounty.”

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times