The Food and Drug Administration is going back to square one in its attempt to come up with guidelines for fish consumption. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The Food and Drug Administration is going back to square one in its attempt to come up
with guidelines for fish consumption. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
A scientific advisory panel indicated the FDA missed the mark in a proposed advisory on
mercury in fish. The agency will try again. Environmentalists are critical of the FDA for
assuming that people regularly eat all kinds of fish when many families usually eat just a few
kinds… with tuna being very popular. Tuna is higher in mercury than some other types of fish.
Gina Solomon is a medical doctor and a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense
Council. She says because fish is healthful food, the FDA should just tell people how much tuna
is safe.
“If you weigh about 140 pounds, you can eat a can of chunk light tuna about every four days and
still be within EPA’s safe level.”
Solomon says because they’re smaller, mercury is a greater problem for kids and unborn children.
She says using the EPA guidelines, it’s clear they should consume even less tuna. Whether new
FDA guidelines make it that clear or simple is yet to be seen.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.