Mercury Rising

On my way home tonight, I heard a piece on AM radio about a high school in Pittfield, Massachusetts being closed tomorrow because a mercury thermometer had been broken in the classroom. They are still cleaning up the mercury, a neurotoxin. I thought of my high school science class where the teacher put a bead of mercury on a piece of glass and let us see and touch it.

Then I got home and found this article on mercury contamination in commercially sold fish, from the Chicago Tribune (via B12Partners.net, via Newsfare.com):

Toxic risk on your plate
Seafood for sale in area stores is contaminated with mercury, Tribune testing shows. Government and industry fail to protect consumers, even as Americans buy more fish than ever.

Supermarkets throughout the Chicago area are routinely selling seafood highly contaminated with mercury, a toxic metal that can cause learning disabilities in children and neurological problems in adults, a Tribune investigation has found.

In one of the nation's most comprehensive studies of mercury in commercial fish, testing by the newspaper showed that a variety of popular seafood was so tainted that federal regulators could confiscate the fish for violating food safety rules.

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The Tribune's investigation reveals a decades-long pattern of the U.S. government knowingly allowing millions of Americans to eat seafood with unsafe levels of mercury.

Regulators have repeatedly downplayed the hazards, failed to take basic steps to protect public health and misled consumers about the true dangers, documents and interviews show.

The government does not seize high-mercury fish that violate U.S. limits. Regulators do not even inspect seafood for mercury--not in ports, processing plants or supermarkets.

In fact, federal officials have tested so few fish that they have only a limited idea of how much mercury many species contain, government data show. For example, the government has tested just four walleye and 24 shrimp samples since 1978. The newspaper tested more samples of commercial walleye than the government has in the last quarter-century.

So, to amend my previous post, while I don't worry too much about eating organic food, I do make some simple choices. I don't eat swordfish or tuna from the fish case. I only eat canned tuna fish about once a month, and after reading this article, I may reduce that!

Here's what the authors recommend to limit your mercury exposure:

How to minimize risks of mercury

A lack of government guidance makes it difficult to avoid mercury in seafood. But consumers can take steps to reduce the likelihood of eating tainted fish.

While it makes no difference where you shop--supermarkets, health food stores and gourmet fish shops often use the same suppliers--consumers can choose to buy certain kinds of seafood.

Small or short-lived species, such as sardines, shrimp, crab and tilapia, generally have low amounts of mercury. Wild salmon, which eat plankton and small fish, are low in mercury, as are farm-raised salmon, which are fed fish meal containing little mercury.

Large predator fish, such as swordfish and shark, generally have the most mercury.