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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 8
April 2008
Sushi, seafood benefit health, safe to eat
The New Year started off with a sickening jolt for the seafood industry when one of the most powerful newspapers in America, the New York Times, printed a story strongly suggesting that fresh tuna was dangerous to eat.
Within days, the price of all tunas – bigeye, yellowfin, bluefin – sold on the New York market dropped $3 a pound.
Blue Water Fishermen’s Association (BWFA), whose members include pelagic swordfish and tuna longliners, decided extraordinary counter measures were required. Working with experts on the mercury question and using the latest scientific research, BWFA Executive Director Rich Ruais wrote the following op-ed response.
To make sure it was widely circulated, the Blue Water board voted to pay to have the piece distributed in mid-March by a national news wire service. It went out to thousands of writers and newspaper editors around the country. Blue Water also paid for additional distribution to a special list of magazines that target restaurants, chefs, and food distributors.
“We wanted to make sure they had the facts and could assure their customers they could buy and enjoy seafood with confidence,” Ruais explained.
While the primary target of the New York Times article was tuna, the mercury-in-seafood scare is a blow against everyone in the seafood industry, according to Ruais.
“The trouble is people tend to think, if one fish is bad for you, then all seafood is bad for you,” he said. “That’s why this is a threat. And that’s why the entire industry has to counteract the fearmongering.”
Ruais hopes that every fisherman, seafood dealer, and support industry person who reads his op-ed will use it to write letters to their own local newspapers and to discuss the issue with their nonindustry friends and neighbors.
“The information here is free. It’s factual, up to date, and timely. Use it,” he said. “This is not over. It will take this kind of challenge to convince the FDA to act quickly to revise its archaic mercury standards. Blue Water has done its part and will continue to do so, but this is a complex issue. It will take time and everyone’s effort to educate the public about the truth: Fish is a miracle food.”
–Editor
On Jan. 23, New York Times writer Marion Burros published an article entitled “High levels of mercury found in tuna sushi” and warned the public to avoid eating bluefin tuna and other fish species for fear of mercury toxicity. The story was picked up by numerous other publications obviously unaware, as was Burros, of the latest science critical of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mercury health risk advisory standards.
Scientific research over the last several years has established that the trace element selenium found in all marine fish prevents and reverses adverse effects of mercury exposure.
According to Dr. Nick Ralston, a leading US scientist on the selenium/mercury interactions, the extremely high binding affinity between selenium and mercury is a fundamental feature of selenium’s protective effect against mercury.
The study upon which the outdated FDA guideline is based stems largely from diet data on Faroe Island residents who have high consumption of pilot whale meat, which is low in selenium and high in mercury. Tuna has about 18 times more selenium while swordfish has five times more selenium than mercury.
Similar studies conducted in the Seychelles Islands and the most recent and largest study to date in the United Kingdom (Hibbeln et al. 2007) demonstrated the effects of increased fish consumption by expecting mothers on neurological development of their children. Both studies demonstrated improved developmental scores in the children of women with increased fish consumption.
Detoxification
As a result of these studies, a coalition of private groups and federal agencies are challenging the advice from the FDA that pregnant and/or breastfeeding women should not eat more than 12 ounces of fish and seafood per week.
The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition with 150 member organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, March of Dimes, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is urging the FDA to change the standard and recognize the importance of fish consumption due to the benefits of omega-3, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and selenium in most fish.
In a recent article published in Biological Trace Elements Research (2007 119:193-194) entitled “Proceedings of the International Symposium on Selenium-Mercury Interactions,” scientist M. F. Flores-Arce wrote, “The evidence of harm by the mercury in fish to humans is scant, and leading nutrition experts have in fact concluded that the health benefits of seafood, if only as a nutritional source of omega-3 fatty acids, greatly outweigh any potential risk associated with the presence of mercury.”
Further, Flores-Arce stated, “As a rule, ocean fish obtain enough selenium for their physiological needs and for the detoxification of the mercury they may come in contact with. Humans likewise detoxify mercury in vivo with selenium as was demonstrated through studies of mercury miners from the Slovenian mining town of Idrija and numerous other studies.”
Life expectancy
The Japanese per capita consumption of seafood in 2001 was 145.7 pounds vs. about 47 pounds here in the US (amounts are whole weight). They have one of the world’s longest life expectancy at 81.25 years old.
A 2004 study by the Journal of Health and Science indicated that fully 87% of Japan’s population, including 74% of Japanese women of childbearing age, has more mercury in their system than the most restrictive EPA reference dose.
Yet Japanese children consistently outscore American kids on standardized tests. In fact, Japanese 15-year-olds rank sixth best in the world in knowledge and skills.
Heart health
The evidence is overwhelming regarding the importance of omega-3 fatty acids for cardiovascular health. At the Sustainable Seafood Summit in 2006, Dr. Bill Hogarth, then director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, noted the following.
“The world’s top researchers have found that seafood can also help fight illnesses such as cancer, inflammatory diseases, and Alzheimer’s. Studies have linked seafood consumption with lower heart rates, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and lower body weight. Eating ... seafood each day can cut the risk of death from heart disease by 20%,” he said.
In the same speech, Dr. Hogarth also noted the benefit of naturally occurring selenium in seafood to promote brain development.
Monster agencies
Unfortunately, we are stuck with a classic bureaucratic mess with two monster agencies – FDA and EPA – being unable to keep up with the science and make modifications to health advisories.
We also have too many reporters who do not like to do their homework. The result is a proliferation of scare stories hurting the future health of Americans, including unborn children, by reduced seafood consumption.
Leading worldwide researchers have concluded that FDA and EPA’s consideration of mercury content alone to evaluate the risk of mercury toxicity is inadequate. A more comprehensive seafood safety standard is one based on the absolute amounts and relative proportions of selenium and mercury in each species of fish.
Getting the science right apparently has been the easy part of this problem. Getting government to respond is a daunting challenge to the seafood industry and knowledgeable scientists.
To the extent that “scare stories” about mercury toxicity reduce ocean fish consumption among Americans, a measurable decline in the health and longevity of Americans is most likely to occur over time unless other diet sources of omega-3 fatty acids and selenium are found.
Rich Ruais
Rich Ruais is the executive director of the Blue Water Fishermen’s Association and the East Coast Tuna Association. He can be reached by phone at (603) 898-8862 or by e-mail at <rruais@aol.com>.
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