Over at the New York Times, Jim Windolf astutely notes that the American media has a corrosive habit of fomenting hysteria over nonexistent health threats, and that we’d probably be better off tuning out the doomsayers and going about our lives. The irony is that Windolf rattles off a long list of these supposed nutritional dangers in the course of making his argument, but makes no distinction between nutrition advice rooted in sound science and mere myths propagated by agenda-driven activists and quack lifestyle gurus.

In fact, Windolf uncritically repeats one of the most destructive phony health scares in recent memory: the baseless myth that eating seafood like tuna is a threat to your health.

Windolf links to NRDC, an eco-activist group, to support this claim, which is both a missed opportunity and a teachable moment. It’s a missed opportunity to remind readers that not all sources are equally credible. The fear-mongering of the agenda-driven fringe, for example, does not warrant the same attention as the ever growing mountain of studies on the nutritional benefits of seafood from leading global health organizations like the UN, World Health Organization or even the Government’s own Dietary Guidelines. The hypothetical fears of the professional fundraisers at NRDC do not deserve equal footing with, say, Harvard University’s finding that 84,000 preventable deaths occur each year due to a low seafood consumption.

It’s a teachable moment because instead of throwing up his hands and resolving (even in jest) to ignore all nutrition advice, Windolf could have asked how we can do a better job of making sure the public is guided by the best science, and not the loudest quack.

Conveniently enough, a big part of that responsibility lays at the feet Windolf’s employers at the New York Times, which has trumpeted groundless fears about tuna on multiple occasions, including one story so error-ridden and out-of-line with accepted journalistic standards that the author was publicly admonished by the Times public editor.

As long as supposedly credible outlets like the Times continue to publish misleading articles on health—whether out of ideological sympathy with the activists pushing them, or a simple desire to milk clicks by scaring readers—the dynamic Windolf decries will continue, and public health will suffer.