No one likes being duped. But thats how it feels to read the posts on the blog, Moms Clean Air Force. The site appears to be a place where mothers share their experiences more or less spontaneously. One such item caught our attention today because its headline was so alarming, My Toddlers Mercury Poisoning From Tuna.

The article, by novelist Ayelet Waldman, recounts her fear that her daughters development had been impacted by mercury. Its a harrowing story. But its not until the final paragraph does Waldman reveal the real point of her essay. The most important thing we as mothers can do to protect our children, Waldman writes, is to demand action from our government.

In fact, Moms Clean Air Force is not a blog with objective information for mothers. It is a website that exists to oppose something called the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act which would require the EPA to conduct an analysis of the costs and benefits of any new rules.

What does this have to do with tuna? Absolutely nothing except that new mothers are among the most receptive audiences for any new information about children. Activists know that if they can wrap their pet causes around the concerns of new mothers theyll have a cadre of potential supporters willing to sign petitions and make phone calls on their behalf.

Of course, thats the whole purpose of the website. Its an environmental activist organization masquerading as an advice column for moms.

Theres no doubt were all for clean air and a healthy environment but targeting tuna this way is more than misguided, its deceptive. The minuscule levels of mercury found in tuna are naturally occurring. Letters to the EPA wont change them.

Independent Harvard researcher, Dr. Eric Rimm, told The New York Times in 2004: “The message of fish being good has been lost, and people are learning more about the hypothetical scare of a contaminant than they are of the well-documented benefits.”

None of this information matters to activists willing to use any means to achieve their specific end. And that should be a concern for all of us.

Its no secret that these days that news organizations, especially on line operations, are hungry for content and inexpensive ways to develop it. MSNBC.com appears to be harnessing the power of the ever under-paid and often under-prepared student journalist to bulk up its offerings.

And while ripe with learning opportunities and great potential exposure, in this case MSNBC.com has done a huge disservice to one set of novice reporters by failing to check their work carefully. They cubs who wrote Tainted seafood reaching American tables, experts say missed huge swaths of available data and were essentially duped by anti-competition groups that want to regulate imported seafood out of the market .

The fake food safety scare that has been created by special interests groups opposed to imported seafood is well known to responsible, seasoned journalists. Encouraging cubs to dig into its origins would be an appropriate direction but allowing them to be manipulated through absentee editorial direction is a disappointment of the highest order.

Shame on MSNBC.com

October 5, 2011

Jennifer Sizemore,

Editor in Chief MSNBC.com

VIA Email

Dear Ms. Sizemore,

I am writing to express concern that the content you published today on MSNBC.com in partnership with News21 is not up to the editorial standards of MSNBC.com or NBC News. We ask that you immediately remove the report while you conduct an internal review.

Specifically, I am referring to errors of omission and selective research or sourcing that presents not only a sensationalized report but one that is ultimately inaccurate. The report runs under the headline Tainted seafood reaching American tables, experts say.

In paragraph eight the reporter states that seafood is especially risky because of the sheer volume that is imported compared to other goods. This is quite simply not true. A new, independent report from the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida titled Ranking the Risks: The 10 Pathogen-Food Combinations with the Greatest Burden on Public Health shows seafood, imported or not, has a public health impact (created by pathogens) that is far less than poultry, complex foods, pork, produce, beef, deli/other meats and dairy products. Writing that seafood is especially risky in a report about food safety is an exaggeration and is inaccurate.

Further example of the hyperbole in this report can be found in the very next paragraph where the reporter, in writing about the risks associated with imported seafood, notes an example of such risk can be found in a 2007 case where 10 consumers were sickened.

MSNBC.com has devoted 1,300 words to a risk that is illustrated by 10 cases of illness four years ago. More than a dozen people died from eating cantaloupe in the last four weeks, and MSNBC.com devotes 1,300 words to a story that illustrates a risk with 10 illnesses four years ago?

In paragraph 10, the writer reports on the FDAs regulatory system that relies on preventative controls rather than testing a large volume of the imported product. Nowhere is it reported that this system, the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system, is the very same system used to regulate domestic seafood. Throughout the piece the regulatory controls on imported seafood are targeted as inadequate, but it goes unmentioned that those are the very same controls used for domestic seafood.

In perhaps the most concerning omission the writer reports, beginning in paragraph 20, on the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries testing 258 samples of imported fish. The reporter simply leaves out the fact that the USDA tested 733 samples of both imported and domestic fish, 10 came back positive: five domestic and five imported. All were at levels below regulatory concern. (Page 10439: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FRPubs/2008-0031.pdf) When you look at the thorough, balanced and independent USDA data a very different picture emerges.

Whats more, in paragraph 27 the writer describes domestic lobbying efforts to get FDA regulation replaced with USDA regulation of domestic catfish. Again, nowhere is it clearly examined that this is an anti-competition move designed to exclude imports from the market. It goes unreported that a shift to USDA regulation would immediately halt imports. This is not an inside baseball, regulatory play that a cub reporter could miss. In fact, the Wall Street Journal has very publically offered its opinion on the issue, four times (see attached.)

We would be glad to play a role in any internal review you conduct. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

cc: Charles Tillinghast

President MSNBC.com

Jody Brannon

National Director News21

Kristin Gilger

Associate Dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

September 21, 2011

John Geddes
Managing Editor
New York Times
VIA Email

Dear Mr. Geddes,

Today New York Times blogger Mark Bittman asks the question, is it Time to Boycott Tuna Again? His column was based entirely on information provided by the activist group Greenpeace. While we recognize his work was presented as his view, we challenge the New York Times not to let ignorance of subject and a lack of research hide behind the cloak of opinion. It is recognized and appreciated that the Times should maintain strict separation between editorial and opinion content; however, the standards under which both are produced should be universal.

Mr. Bittman writes about the current state of canned tuna sustainability. He apparently failed to do much research (at least he presents none in his piece) other than repackaging Greenpeace talking points.

Nowhere does he mention the work already being done by responsible, mainstream environmentalists through the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), a group created through a partnership between WWF, the worlds leading conservation organization, and canned tuna companies from across the globe. Nowhere does he mention the commitments these companies have made, the global recognition they have earned, or the millions of dollars they expend in sponsoring research for conservation groups and the tuna community. This appears an odd omission when opining about tuna sustainability.

Does Mr. Bittman even know about this group or the stakeholders from throughout the environmental community who work with them?

Is Mr. Bittman unfamiliar with Ray Hilborn a renowned professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington whose own New York Times Op Ed stated, the albacore, skipjack and yellowfin tuna and swordfish on American menus are not threatened.

Mr. Bittman, a food blogger, has not been a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel for the Presidents Commission on Ocean Policy. Nor does Mr. Bittman serve on the Editorial Boards of seven journals including the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science Magazine. Dr. Hilborn does. Would not it stand to reason that an informed opinion on this topic in your paper might consider previously published information?

Mr. Bittmans column goes as far as to suggest it might be time to boycott tuna. Mr. Bittman may claim he never overtly calls for a boycott, but from stem to stern, the article intimates that that is the step he suggests. Does he know he is suggesting boycotting the companies who are partners in the very organization that is spearheading the sustainability efforts he calls for?

The Times is a better paper than to publish pieces even opinion pieces that blindly follow the talking points of one, marginalized group. Dont your readers deserve to know that Greenpeace has been repeatedly invited to join conservation groups in solving sustainability challenges but has rejected all those invitations? Some simple research would have uncovered this fact.

Using Greenpeace as the sole source, for even an opinion piece, flies in the face of the current mainstream understanding of tuna sustainability. Such an effort is contrasted by acclaimed science writer Wilson da Silva who pens, Greenpeace was once a friend of science, helping bring attention to important but ignored environmental research. These days, its a ratbag rabble of intellectual cowards intent on peddling an agenda, whatever the scientific evidence. Its current campaign against canned tuna is another effort in which it ignores the science and refuses to participate in sustainability work with other responsible, environmental organizations.

Mr. Bittman begins his piece by harkening back to the days before dolphin safe tuna, then launches into an attack on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). Perhaps he should have contacted Earth Island Institute before he went to press and asked them what a ban on FADs could potentially do to dolphin mortality. The fear from the informed environmental community is that fewer FADs could lead to more dolphin deaths. This fundamental lack of understanding by the author is unfortunately a hallmark of this piece.

Mr. Bittman gleefully writes that he wished he could have seen the Greenpeace blimp mocking tuna brands in La Jolla a couple of weeks ago. In endorsing this tactic does Mr. Bittman also endorse Greenpeaces use of disturbing, violent cartoon videos aimed at children, harassing phone calls and cyber attacks?

Throughout, Mr. Bittman cites bycatch statistics that deftly parrot Greenpeaces rhetoric but are in fact alternately riddled with hyperbole or just plain wrong. Again, simple research would yield the facts.

Mr. Bittman lauds adoption of pole and line tuna fishing, openly questioning why all tuna companies cant switch to that method. Does Mr. Bittman know that scientists have studied this? Does Mr. Bittman know they have identified the devastating impact such an unrealistic wholesale switch could have on the sustainability of bait fisheries? Does Mr. Bittman know the increase in carbon output such a move would create? Does Mr. Bittman know that of the 200 million cases of canned tuna consumed annually worldwide only 4 million are pole and line? These are important questions that he and Greenpeace have not addressed. Greenpeace has spent no time and zero dollars researching the impacts of the operational changes they cavalierly demand in the name of sustainability.

Greenpeaces myopic view of this issue is out of step with science, and Mr. Bittmans lack of research only promotes a misguided agenda. Such an opinion piece is not in keeping with the New York Time standards.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons
National Fisheries Institute

CC: Snigdha Koirala
Online Opinion Editor
Arthur Brisbane
Public Editor

Our long-time readers will recall how beginning in January 2010, the National Fisheries Institute challenged Dr. Mehmet Oz, the host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” concerning statements he made about fish and mercury on his program. Since then, we’ve written Dr. Oz‘s producers and lawyers on two additional occasions (click here or here). We issued a media advisory and a press release when the original episode, with errors, was re-broadcast in June 2010. In addition, we’ve also written twice to King Features, the syndicator of his national newspaper column (click here and here), when we discovered errors.

All in all, Dr. Oz has communicated with us only once, with a perfunctory letter sent by one of his lawyers. But while Dr. Oz has been quiet for some time now on the issue, we always keep an eye out, and once again he returned to his old misguided advice about eating seafood when he said the following to a reporter at WPBF-TV in Palm Beach, Florida: “As for canned tuna, indulge just once a week, because it’s high in mercury.”

The FDA actually says, For most people, the risk from mercury by eating fish and shellfish is not a health concern. While pregnant or nursing mothers and young children are advised to avoid four rarely-eaten fish (shark, swordfish, tilefish and king mackerel) the very latest in peer-reviewed published nutrition advice (the USDAs Dietary Guidelines for Americans) is clear, the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks, even for pregnant women.

Compounding the problem: Dr. Oz made the same mistake on his own website and has made no attempt to correct the error.

Dr. Oz has served up inaccurate information about fish numerous times, even after we informed him of his error. Dr. Oz has left us no choice but to send the following letter to his legal counsel.

Dear Ms. Beaudoin,

The National Fisheries Institute suspects that Dr. Mehmet Ozs continued inaccurate statements about the safety of eating canned tuna might not merely be an uninformed opinion but rather the willful disparagement of a product. On July 19, 2011, while promoting his upcoming fourth season, Dr. Oz told a WPBF-TV reporter, As for canned tuna, indulge just once a week, because it’s high in mercury. To view that quote in context, please visit http://www.wpbf.com/health/28586046/detail.html.

Since January 2010, we have written to you and other representatives of ZoCo Productions on three separate occasions. Our letters have pointed out that Dr. Ozs views on seafood consumption are in stark contrast with the Food and Drug Administrations long-standing guidelines and the USDAs Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is the current federal nutrition policy. Further, having been informed of and provided with the approved FDA language previously, Dr. Oz continues to sow confusion about the safety of canned tuna. The incorrect interpretation of the FDA advisory can still be found on your website. The article in question is at: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/three-dangerous-food-toxins.

The First Amendment allows for uninhibited, robust and wide-open debate on public issues and protects people from legal ramifications unless their speech is both false and made with the knowledge of its falsehood. Since we have been on the record with ZoCo Productions and its employee, Dr. Oz, about this issue numerous times, a reasonable person could be led to believe that his continued campaign against canned tuna is an intentional, reckless disregard for the truth.

Attached are copies of our previous correspondence as well as the governments official advice on eating seafood, which does not restrict canned tuna or any other type of seafood for the general public. Since The Dr. Oz Show is syndicated, we are compelled to inform the general counsels at the networks and affiliates scheduled to broadcast the program about this regrettable situation. They too are ethically and legally responsible for program content. We will also share the previous communications, USDA advice on consumption of seafood and a copy of this letter warning them to scrutinize the shows content so that they do not broadcast content that misinforms consumers about canned tuna or other seafood products.

With this in mind, we would like to request the following:

• Update your website deleting any incorrect interpretation of the FDA advisory on seafood and mercury. To this day, your website reads, The Food and Drug Administration recommends that people eat albacore tuna once a week at most and chunk tuna no more than twice a week. Pregnant women (or those trying to conceive) should avoid high-mercury fish as much as possible. As noted earlier, this is simply wrong. There is not and has never been a government limit on eating canned tuna or any other seafood for the general public. Furthermore, pregnant women are encouraged to eat 12 ounces of fish weekly and all 12 ounces could be light canned tuna or 6 ounces of albacore tuna.
• Make an on-air correction, in addition to editing your website, to clarify the actual content of the FDA seafood guidance.

Failure to reply to this letter in a timely manner with an assurance that Dr. Oz understands that free speech doesnt sanction promotion of false information and with a pledge that he will be judicious when dispensing advice about seafood consumption on his show or at public appearances will result in a public appeal made through the media and direct outreach to major medical societies and your advertisers.

Sincerely,

Mary Anne Hansan

We’ll keep you informed as to if/when we get a resp onse.

Late yesterday, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published its Nature’s Redlist of Threatened Species (full report here). In that report, the authors claimed that a majority of the world’s tuna stocks are declining and now qualify as “threatened” or “near-threatened.” Included in that list are three species contained in canned tuna, yellowfin, bigeye and albacore.The report has subsequently been picked up by media outlets around the world.

While threatened or near-threatenedsoundsscary, the folks at the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation see things a little differently. There, Victor Restrepo and Bill Fox laid out the case forwhy the IUCN definitions aren’t necessarily as alarmingas they might first sound.

“While there are positive aspects to using a consistent formula, when IUCN lists a fish as ‘Threatened,’ it does not necessarily mean that the species is in real and immediate danger of extinction or collapse,” wrote Restrepo and Fox. “It just means that there has been a drop in the population size that meets the formula used in IUCN classifications. Very often, these IUCN classifications are at odds with what is considered to be successful fisheries management to ensure sustainable seafood production.” That sounds like the sort of nuance that normally never makes it into the newspaper, and there’s a whole lot more where that came from. Read it all here.

This is not the first time, in reference to a community of extremists, I have noted a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein. It goes something like this, The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Unfortunately, thats exactly what Jane Hightower, noted mercury media gadfly, is doing with her petition to the FDA. Hightowers campaign to encourage irrational fears about the normal consumption of commercial seafood based on allegations that contradict the scientific mainstream are now part of an effort to waste precious resources at the FDA. She has requested the agency consider a policy that requires warning signs on seafood products and in stores a request made time and again in different venues and rejected.

Hightower cronies used the exact same allegations in a California lawsuit against canned tuna and they lost that fight twice. Then in Texas activists made a push for signage that was defeated in the state legislature. They then took their tired, now marginalized, arguments to the Conference for Food Protection, a group of food safety experts who provide recommendations on how states should regulate and inspect restaurants and grocery stores as part of the FDA’s Model Food Code, and they were sent packing there too.

While the Hightowers of the world have monotonously and ineffectively repeated their mantra and buried their collective heads in the sandy abyss that is out-of-date-science, up-to-date-science has essentially lapped their arguments.

In January 2010, a commission of the World Health Organization and the UNs Food and Agriculture Organization said its time governments change the way they communicate about seafood consumption or risk avoidable public health consequences. Their message? Tell consumers to eat more fish because the risk is in not eating enough.

In January 2011, the USDAs 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans came to the clear and concise conclusion that even for pregnant women, the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks.

Despite the claims of harm cited by Hightower and her extremist pals, they know theres no evidence of mercury poisoning from the normal consumption of commercial seafood in the U.S. in any peer-reviewed published medical literature.

Hightowers FDA filing means almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. The FDA has been conducting a risk/benefit analysis of seafood for, literally, years and the USDA just finished its two-year review of seafood science and concluded just the opposite of the Hightower rhetoric. I could petition the FDA to slap a warning label on bottled water that notes the contents are a potential choking hazard if consumed. But review of such a petition would, of course, be a complete waste of FDAs time.

Better regulation through wasting FDAs time with a baseless publicity stunt? Now thats a food safety approach I had not heard before.

In December 2009, Edward Groth approached the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) in the hope that NFI would hire Groth Consulting Services.

Groth wrote in a letter to NFI President John Connelly, Im hoping we can discuss the possibility of my working with NFI on risk communication about mercury in seafood. He wasnt shy about it either, noting, Ill attach some personal references, should you decide to check me out further. To assuage any fears we might have about working with him he assured us that, it may surprise you that our perspectives have much in common.

Despite all ofhis talk about sharing goals and working together, we did not respond to his proposal. So, Groth went to work for an organization that takes the inverse view of the mainstream scientific communitys view we at NFI promote.

Thats right. First he was for the accepted science we promote then we wouldnt hire him and now hes against that science. Got all that? Good, because it might give you a sense of just who this consultant for the Mercury Policy Project is that is now asking the USDA to change the new 2010 Dietary Guidelines.

Lest we forget that the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) reviewed more than five years of science to come up with its conclusions. Lest we forget that the committee was comprised of a nutrition all-star team of leading experts from around the country. Lest we forget the process was a transparent, formal, public effort that took two years to complete. But since Groth and a handful of his cronies disagree with the avalanche of science that says theyre wrong, the USDA should drop everything and rewrite the Guidelines five months after they were published?

He does make the point that, the 2010 Guidelines have failed to consider critical recent evidence on the risks associated with exposure to methylmercuryIll assume that evidence is found hidden somewhere outside the 175 articles on the topic of the risks of seafood consumption that the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee considered, before honing in on 7 primary articles and 2 review articles identified as scientifically sound and relevant.

He also makes the point that following statement distorts what the scientific committee recommended and what the DGAC report actually said, — The Committee emphasized that, even for pregnant women, the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks.

Okay, lets take a look at what the scientific committee actually said: Moderate, consistent evidence shows that health benefits derived from the consumption of a variety of cooked seafood in the US in amounts recommended by the Committee outweigh the risks associated with methyl mercury (MeHg) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) exposure, even among women who may become or who are pregnant, nursing mothers, and children ages 12 and younger.”

Ahhhhhhhh now I see. Really? It distorts what the report actually said?

But wait just a minute folks– Groths got a dozen signatures on his letter. Thats got to mean something right?As soon as the FDA gets done sorting through the 130-plus MDs, Phds, RNs and RDs that signed a petition in 2010 led by two of the worlds top experts on brain health that says the exact opposite of Groth, then perhaps they should take a look at this latest missive.

The USDAs comment period on proposed catfish regulation has closed and many a journalist is combing through the submissions, sifting through the repetitious rhetoric shoveled onto the record by myriad special interest catfish foot soldiers. Reading the record with an understanding of the regulatory comment process, and an appreciation for the fact that said process is not a vote in which quantity trumps quality, the story is clear: all mainstream, commercial facets of the agricultural sector submitted comments and along with public policy and legal experts are, without question, uniformly opposed to USDA settling on a protectionist-designed definition that would not improve food safety but would waste taxpayer money and have an overtly negative impact on countless U.S. interests.

Despite speaking loudly, the special interest catfish lobby stands outside the mainstream and alone on this issue, once again.

But today the special interest groups apparent compulsion to distort the facts and the record is on display with a press release that claims USDA Reports Overwhelming Support on New Catfish Regulationsfor all imported, Domestic Catfish.”

Really, reporters? Is that what USDA is reporting? Is that what Agriculture Secretary Vilsack is reporting? Is that what the USDA press office is reporting overwhelming support on new catfish regulations?

Thats what the catfish lobby is reporting not USDA. Their press release, their words, their continued distortions.

Oh and while were noting distortions the contact on the press release is Molly Moore, from Sanderson Strategies a firm hired by the catfish lobby. And on the USDA docket we find comments by one Molly Moore, the very same Molly Moore. But interestingly she fails to identify herself as representing the catfish lobby for which she so clearly works, in fact she cites her organization as consumer and notes that as a former journalist shes been monitoring Asian media coverage of catfish farming for the past two years.

Food for thought, reporters.

An Oregon man named Allen Heckard once reportedly sued Michael Jordan and Nike because Mr. Heckard apparently looked too much like the basketball star in his Nike gear and the unwanted attention was apparently causing him “emotional pain and suffering.” He thought a payment of $832 million would help him get over the horrors of being mistaken for arguably the greatest professional basketball player who ever lived.

This is of course an example of an absurd abuse of the legal system that naturally did not pan out for the plaintiff.

Theres another such example that doesnt quite have the same star power as Mr. Heckards but on the merits of science its just as ludicrous and comes to us from a group whose desperate attention-getting antics of the past have proven they have little if any shame.

The group of course is the wildlife extremistsat GotMercury? Whose misleading and misguided crusades are not designed to help consumers but simply cause them to eliminate fish from their diet because of the organizations concern over sea turtles (not public health), thusly explaining why the groups actual charter lies with the Turtle Island Restoration Network. Mr. Heckard looks a whole heck of a lot more like Michael Jordan than this organization resembles a science based, health organization.

Think back to a chillier time during the Holidays when millions of Americans donated canned food to charities around the country, GotMercury? issued an announcement asking charitable organizations not to distribute donations of canned tuna. The reason: turtles and the group’s exaggerated claims about trace amount of mercury in the fish.

That announcement showed us just how desperate the radicals at Got Mercury? had become. Canned tuna is unique because it provides a rare combination of nutrition and affordability. No other lean protein can provide such a powerful array of Omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamin D. Substituting for it in America’s food banks isn’t just impractical, it’s impossible, and denying it to people who come to food banks for help at the holidays is not only counterproductive but cruel. That stunt illustrated the only thing that matters to these sea turtle campaigners is their radical agenda, and they’re not above using the poor to make their point, no matter who gets hurt.

Now theyve revved up the ole scare monger machine and have filed a legal petition with the FDA asking for warning signs about fish in stores and a lower limit on the amount of mercury allowed in seafood. They chirp sanctimoniously about protecting the public from mercury and artfully craft language that appears to warn consumers that eating seafood and thus mercury ingestion can lead to death.

Even the sea-turtle-campaigning Queens of hyperbole have reached a new level of rhetoric with this legal boondoggle. Either they feel the proverbial tide of ground truth science pulling them further out of the mainstream sea or they have literally no idea what the current state of seafood science says about mercury in fish.

And what does it say?

Well, despite the dire predictions from GotMercury? The brand new published, peer reviewed Dietary Guidelines for Americans says, seafood consumption of 8 oz (two servings) per week [is] encouraged during pregnancy and it specifically notes that the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks, even for pregnant women.

Im not sure how far from the mainstream of medical and nutrition knowledge any one single organization can be than insinuating people can die from a product that experts concluded, after an exhaustive two year review of the science, is a safe healthy food that people, even pregnant women, need to eat more of.

Wait… perhaps they could be more outside the mainstream of medical and nutrition knowledge when we find that as part of the American Heart Associations 2020 Impact Goal it suggests one of the 7 things you can do to improve heart health in the nutrition category is increase consumption of fish.

Oh and while a handful of wildlife extremists petition the FDA to ignore the current body of science in hopes of curtailing seafood consumption, a growing petition launched last May by two of the worlds top experts on seafood science calls on the FDA to update its 2004 advice on fish and pregnancy because it is out of date, noting that the very misnomers promoted by GotMercury? may be inadvertently causing harm. That request came in the form of an open letter and petition from Professors Thomas Brenna of Cornell University and Michael Crawford of London Metropolitan University to FDA Commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg that was posted online. While researchers and clinicians from the National Institutes of Health, Oxford University, Johns Hopkins, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, as well as representatives from 15 different countries, make up some of the more than 130 signatures on the petition GotMercury? continues its anemic campaign by, this time, doing what Michael Jordans apparent doppelganger did… filing a laughable legal petition.

GotTooMuchTimeOnYourHands?

Guilty as charged.

If you cover the seafood community at all, you know the group leading the fight against fish fraud is the Better Seafood Board. Yesterday, what some might see as an unlikely ally announced its intention to raise awareness about the need for regulators to step up and confront the issues the BSB has been working on. In announcing its intentions Oceana highlighted the April 2010 investigation by 17 state weights and measures departments that led to 21,000 frozen seafood products being pulled from store shelves. However, it either failed to note or simply doesn’t know that the genesis of that multi-state action was a May 2009 standards forum spearheaded by the Better Seafood Board.

What’s more, in its report it derides Bumble Bee tuna for packing mystery tuna because Oceana apparently couldn’t determine the exact tuna species in the pouch. For starters, the packaging and labeling laws in this country do not require the species to be labeled anything other than white or light, and if anyone knows whats in their product and where it came from, it’s Bumble Bee. As a participating member in the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, Bumble Bee can trace its products from capture to plate with a traceability procedure that records the name and flag of catcher and transshipping vessels, fish species, ocean of capture corresponding to tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organization area, fishing trip dates, fishing gear employed, date the company took ownership of the fish and each species by weight. So, if Oceana is looking for an example of a lack of traceability, perhaps Bumble Bee wasn’t the best example.

Regardless of being a little late to the economic integrity party, I guess a warm welcome is still in order, assuming Oceana’s goal is not, as some in the seafood community have theorized, to simply fuel the fires of distrust in the industry and reduce confidence in and consumption of seafood.