In the past I have written that environmental activist groups like Oceana, “continue to operate in that gray area between skillfully under informing and blatantly misinforming.” It would appear that foodconsumer.org writer Sheilah Downey and editor Heather Kelley have taken a page from Oceana’s handbook of operational rhetoric in their article titled “Tuna Getting More Toxic.” The pair is ostensibly reporting on a new U.S. Geological Survey report about the amount of mercury found in Pacific Ocean water.

As is clear from their careful parsing throughout the article they have read the USGS report (unlike some of their brethren in the Fourth Estate.) They go to great lengths not to make huge and obviously erroneous statements about the levels of mercury in seafood, because the USGS report neither studied nor concluded that there was any rise in the mercury levels in fish-only that there was a rise in mercury levels in the water. Despite this they title their report “Tuna Getting More Toxic,” a clear violation of peer reviewed draft report on seafood consumption that finds net outcomes for brain/verbal development in children to be 99.9 percent modest benefit; 0.1 percent modest risk.

The article tells readers that larger species like tuna have higher mercury levels than smaller ones but fails to explain that a publicly available FDA data base shows those levels to be far lower than levels associated with any concern.

Fact- tuna’s not getting more toxic. Fact- the level of naturally occurring methylmercury found in tuna is safe. Fact- under informing by design is violation of journalism ethics.