As I mentioned before, the Vegas article just felt a little incomplete so I reached out to the Managing editor today with a request that the Review-Journal print an addendum and a correction. We shall see. Aditionally I’ve submitted a Letter to the Editor which is also included in this posting.

January 29, 2010

Charles Zobell

Managing Editor

Las Vegas Review-Journal

VIA Email

Dear Mr. Zobell,

I am writing you regarding Keith Rogers’ report titled “Study: Mercury in canned tuna high.” There is an omission and a correction that bare inclusion in an addendum that I respectfully request you publish.

As you know, the National Fisheries Institute alerted Mr. Rogers to the fact that “there have been no cases of mercury toxicity from the normal consumption of commercial seafood in this country ever reported in peer reviewed scientific literature.” This fact is absolutely key to reporting on this issue and is the basis of the Letter to the Editor that I submitted today (see attached.)

Environmental research like the UNLV effort, and reporting on it, often purports to be in search of a fix for a public health issue that is not demonstrably broken. It is impossible to report on a scientist’s efforts to apparently better protect people from methyl mercury levels that are not making them sick.

Meanwhile, the UNLV report and your paper’s reporting claims canned tuna makes up 35% of all seafood consumed in the United States. This is wrong and I specifically pointed this out to Mr. Rogers before this article was printed. If you review the data from National Marine Fisheries Service, as we have, you will find that currently and in the year the UNLV tests were done canned tuna makes up a much smaller percent of the seafood consumed in this country. In 2006 Americans at 16.5 lbs of seafood per capita and 2.9 lbs of that was canned tuna, making canned tuna 17.5% of all seafood consumed that year. Likewise, in the very latest available data, in 2008 you will find Americans ate 16 lbs of seafood per capita and 2.8 lbs of that was canned tuna, making canned tuna again approximately 17.5% of all seafood consumed.

We ask that you allow for a proper perspective on the lack of incidences of actual mercury toxicity from the normal consumption of seafood and that you correct the reported percentage consumption attributed to canned tuna.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

Here’s a draft of the Letter to The Editor that we submitted:

TO: Editor

FR: Gavin Gibbons, National Fisheries Institute

RE: Study: Mercury in canned tuna high

While UNLV students — whose focus is the environment– investigate mercury in tuna (Study: Mercury in canned tuna high, January 29, 2010), independent doctors and researchers at the Food and Drug Administration, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins-whose focus is nutrition-have looked at fish consumption and found that the benefits of eating fish far outweigh any other perceived concerns.

Furthermore, in spite of UNLV’s research, the simple fact is there have been no cases of mercury toxicity from the normal consumption of commercial seafood in this country ever reported in peer reviewed scientific literature. None.

The real public health problem is the fact that Americans aren’t eating enough fish to enjoy the proven health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids, something which could help avoid thousands of premature deaths due to heart disease and stroke. By refusing to report on the big picture, the Review-Journal has inadvertently contributed to exacerbating an actual public health problem.

This morning the Las Vegas Journal Review printed a story about a UNLV report that tested mercury in canned tuna. Several days ago the Journal Review reached out to NFI for some perspective on the pending study. This morning’s article didn’t provide quite as much insight into the perspective we provided so I thought I would share with you the facts we laid out for the reporter. Our letter is below:

January 26, 2010

Keith Rogers
Military and Environment writer
Las Vegas Review-Journal

VIA Email

Dear Mr. Rogers,

Consumers should not be concerned by this report. Canned tuna continues to be a safe and healthy source of protein packed with hearty-healthy omega-3’s. The report is very clear that in all of the brands tested the average methyl mercury level was well below the FDA limit.

The EPA level referenced in the report is not relevant. The EPA levels are applicable to sport-caught fish found in lakes, streams and other internal waterways where the EPA has jurisdiction. The FDA level is designed for commercial seafood like tuna. The EPA’s matrix for its level was developed using something called ambient water criteria. That standard measures the amount of dissolved mercury in water as an approximation for the amount of mercury fish might absorb. It would make sense that its level would focus on “environmental” standards as opposed to “food” standards. The EPA level is designed to work in conjunction with the agency’s mandate to regulate emissions, not food.

It is critical to point out that the methyl mercury found in seafood, like canned tuna, is predominantly the result-not of emissions-but of naturally occurring processes found in the ocean like underwater volcanic activity. For some reason, the authors of the study seem to have obscured this scientific fact, a common conflation used by environmental activists. In fact, the California Courts have ruled twice against the State Attorney General over a signage issue on the grounds that virtually all the trace amounts of methyl mercury found in canned tuna is “naturally occurring.”

In expressing concern that any of the cans supposedly exceeded the FDA’s level, a key fact is ignored. The FDA’s level of 1.0ppm has a built-in 1,000% safety factor also known as an uncertainty factor. The FDA says such a standard, “was established to limit consumers’ methyl mercury exposure to levels 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects.” This means a single can would have to exceed the FDA’s level by ten times to begin to even approach a level of concern for the average consumer. Even the highest levels reported in this study did not come remotely close to that point.

Another concern we have with our initial review of this study is that throughout the report the authors refer to levels of Hg-Hg is a measurement of total mercury while the focus for fish (via FDA and EPA work) is MeHg methyl mercury. Hg can be made up of elemental mercury and methyl mercury. The human body quickly excretes Hg. To combine the two has the potential to artificially inflate the levels.

What’s more the report says “recent studies have established a link between heavy fish consumption and adverse health effects.” However, the studies they cite are far from “recent.” In fact the latest cited in this section is 1997 and the earliest is 1985. Published, independent, peer-reviewed reports that contradict those findings from 2002, 2004, 2007 -among others-were not mentioned. The study even misreports the percentage of canned tuna consumed by Americans each year, over-reporting by as much as 18%, a fact that should shed considerable doubt on the author’s attention to detail and surmise that participants in the Women Infant and Children’s (WIC) program might be at greater risk from tuna consumption. Again, the vast body of scientific literature instead has concluded that Americans as a whole simply don’t get enough seafood in their diet in order to enjoy the full health benefit.

This single study in no way changes the conclusion of the FDA’s Report of Quantitative Risk and Benefit Assessment of Consumption of Commercial Fish released in January 2009 that showed, for instance, children eating fish provided a 99.9 percent modest benefit in brain and verbal development; 0.1 percent modest risk. It also does not change the fact that an independent Harvard University study published in the Journal of The American Medical Association found, “for major health outcomes among adults, based on the strength of the evidence and the potential magnitudes of effect, the benefits of fish intake exceed the potential risks. For women of childbearing age, benefits of modest fish intake, excepting a few selected species, also outweigh risks.”

The overwhelming majority of science finds the benefits of eating seafood and high omega-3 fish, like canned tuna, outweigh any concerns associated with the trace amount of methyl mercury found in fish.

A failure to highlight the fact that the average Hg level for all brands was well below the FDA’s level and that the study does not report on the fact that there is a 1,000% safety factor built in to that level would be an egregious failure in reporting this story. Likewise, we would expect your reporting to include another important fact left out of this study-there have been no cases of mercury toxicity from the normal consumption of commercial seafood in this country ever reported in peer reviewed scientific literature.

Thank you for reaching out to the National Fisheries Institute. In news stories we choose to participate in we insist that the highest of journalism standards are met and that demonstrable facts we provide that may change the reader’s understanding of a subject be included.

We look forward to reading your report.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

cc Greg Haas

Assistant Managing Editor

Charles Zobell

Managing Editor

If any of you saw the Dr. Oz Show (you know the Oprah TV doctor) on Tuesday you probably saw his segment on eating fish. Quite frankly we were surprised at just how off base Dr. Oz was on this one. Getting in bed with environmental activists to gin up a scare story is one thing but contradicting FDA advice, ignoring the American Heart Association’s suggestions while confusing and conflating recreational fish studies with commercial consumption is beyond sloppy. Here’s our letter to Oz’s producer:

January 27, 2010

Laurie Rich
Executive Producer
ZoCo Productions, LLC
VIA Email c/o Jackie Barth

Dear Ms. Rich,

I am writing you about serious scientific inaccuracies in Dr. Oz’s January 26, 2010 segment on fish consumption and mercury.

At the outset of the segment, Dr. Oz contradicts the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advice about eating seafood by saying mercury in seafood is a concern for not only pregnant women and children, but “all of us.” The FDA advice clearly states, “for most people, the risk from mercury by eating fish and shellfish is not a health concern.” The CDC study he cites actually says “finding a measureable amount of mercury in blood or urine does not mean that levels of mercury cause an adverse effect.”

Dr. Oz then attempts to explain how mercury ends up in the seafood Americans eat, but instead describes how pollution contributes to mercury found in lakes and streams where recreational fish are found, not commercial seafood. Dr. Oz describes this process as one that contaminates fish found in the ocean. Fish found in the ocean do contain traces of methylmercury, but it is by in large naturally-occurring from processes like underwater volcanic activity.

The FDA states this in its recently released draft report on commercial fish that “most commercial fish species sold in the United States are harvested from the open ocean or from aquaculture sites. Aquacultured fish tend to be raised and harvested quickly without much opportunity to accumulate methylmercury” and “limited data suggest that methylmercury concentrations in commercial fish have not increased or decreased over time.” Not only is the science clear about this, the California Courts have ruled twice against the State Attorney General over a signage issue on the grounds that virtually all the trace amounts of methylmercury found in ocean fish is “naturally occurring.”

Dr. Oz continues to confuse commercial fish and recreational fish when he announces a study shows that almost all “freshwater” fish found in the U.S. have some mercury in them. That is true, but the “freshwater” fish he is describing are recreational fish from lakes and streams and not the commercial seafood he displayed in the studio. In fact, the study he references did not test the types of seafood available in restaurants and grocery stores at all.

The segment took another disappointing turn when Dr. Oz introduced Jane Hightower as an expert in mercury. Dr. Oz appears to either not care or not be aware that Hightower is a physician with ties to radical environmental activists who has made a cottage industry out of “diagnosing” patients with mercury poisoning. Her work and theories are well outside the medical mainstream and have been questioned by her own colleagues.

With Hightower as his guide, Dr. Oz reviewed what he said were symptoms of mercury poisoning. But nowhere did he mention that there have been no cases of mercury poisoning found in CDC records or peer-reviewed medical journals in the U.S. as the result of the normal consumption of commercial seafood.

With his next guest he discusses the ills of eating two fish meals per week, despite the fact that the American Heart Association recommends people eat at least two servings a week and multiple decades-long studies of fish consumption in the Seychelles Islands found residents there ate 12 servings a week and suffered no ill effects.

Dr. Oz then reveals that he has tested fish and found differing levels of mercury in them. However, he never explains the levels he found or how they compare to federal allowable levels. He claims that sushi grade tuna had the highest level which elicits “ooos” from the studio audience. I wonder if they would have been as impressed if he revealed that the FDA tests fish too and found that on average fresh tuna contained 0.383 parts per million of mercury-that’s over two and a half times lower than the FDA’s allowable level of 1.0 parts per million, which includes a ten-fold safety factor.

Dr. Oz also claims to have tested canned tuna for mercury and notes, again to “ooos” from the crowd, that albacore tuna was found to contain more mercury than light tuna. He does not share the actual levels he found, and again fails to note that the FDA tested canned tuna as well and found the levels in albacore fell nearly three times lower than the FDA’s allowable level and levels in light came in at over eight times lower than the FDA’s allowable level.

It is irresponsible and incomplete to look only at mercury and ignore the healthy nutrients in fish. The most comprehensive study on this issue, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found “avoidance of modest fish consumption due to confusion regarding risks and benefits could result in thousands of excess coronary heart disease deaths annually and suboptimal neurodevelopment in children.” And a study published in the Public Library of Science recently estimated 84,000 preventable deaths a year are attributable to low omega-3/seafood intake.

Taken together, this evidence points to another public health question that Dr. Oz ought to address: By overstating the risk from methlymercury in commercial seafood, is Dr. Oz engaging in the sort of scaremongering that will steer people away from eating fish and eventually result in more harm to Americans than good?

I urge you to address and correct this issue on the air and on the Web with haste before more detrimental misinformation is propagated.

We have already begun to correct the record with this YouTube video that we invite you to watch and share with interested parties.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons
National Fisheries Institute

It would appear CBS News has gone into full hunker mode. You know the type deny, deny, deny. Well, we’ve got some legitimate questions that we want the Black Rock folks to answer and we’re going to keep asking them. Have a look at their latest letter to us and our response:

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

Dear Mr. Gibbons:

I am writing in response to your January 19 and 20 letters complaining about the EARLY SHOW’s January 18, 2010 report on Bisphenol A (“BPA”).

Your letters claim the CBS report conveyed the erroneous impression that “eating a single tuna fish sandwich elevated Kelly Wallace’s BPA blood levels to 5 times the average.” In support, you refer to the fact that Health Canada, which sets acceptable exposure to BPA according to how much food is consumed, “determined that the amount of BPA in canned foods, like tuna, does not rise to the level of concern.”

As you are aware, there is an ongoing dispute among reputable scientists as to whether acceptable BPA exposure limits should be measured according to assumptions based on how much food people consume, or according to how much BPA is in a person’s blood. Many scientists, including University of Missouri Professor Fred Vom Saal, believe that the level of BPA in the blood is the more appropriate measure. Indeed, the FDA has recently decided to re-evaluate BPA’s safety, in part, in order to look more closely at the issue of how BPA fluctuates in the bloodstream of various populations.

CBS’s “non-scientific experiment”, which featured Professor Vorn Saal’s NIH approved method for measuring BPA in the blood, was intended to highlight the concerns of these scientists (and apparently the FDA) that high levels of BPA in the blood may be harmful.

In that regard, we are confident that the report was journalistically sound, CBS took care to emphasize that “BPA is still considered safe” by the FDA and that “BPA has not been proven harmful.” We also made clear that the point of our experiment was to show how hard it can be for the consumer to avoid exposure to BPA, since BPA is in “so many things we encounter every day.” Thus, we concluded our report, not by telling viewers to avoid any particular product, but by saying that the best approach for the consumer was to enjoy everything in moderation.

Finally, I would note that our report never stated that Ms. Wallace’s BPA levels from her initial test were the sole result of her eating a tuna sandwich. But you should be aware that, according to Professor Vom Saal, his testing would support that claim had it been made, as he measured the unmetabolized BPA that had entered Ms. Wallace’s bloodstream in the few hours prior to the test, during which period she ate nothing but the tuna sandwich..

In light of the above, CBS does not believe any action on our part is warranted.

Sincerely,

Linda Mason

Our response to CBS:

January 22, 2010

Linda Mason

Senior Vice President

Standards and Special Projects

CBS News

VIA Email

Dear Ms. Mason,

Thank you for your response to our letters of concern regarding Kelly Wallace‘s report on the January 18^th edition of the Early Show and her “non-scientific” experiment that clearly suggested a direct cause and effect relationship between Wallace’s personal BPA levels and the consumption of a single tuna sandwich.

You note in your response that there is a dispute among scientists as to whether acceptable BPA exposure limits should be measured, “based on how much food people eat, or how much BPA is in a person’s blood stream.” While this might be a balanced characterization of the current state of the science, why was it never mentioned in Wallace’s report?

You also note that the point of the report was to illustrate “how hard it can be for the consumer to avoid exposure to BPA, since BPA is in so many things we encounter every day.” In Wallace’s report the appearance was created that the only BPA Wallace supposedly came in contact with was via the tuna sandwich.

Wallace never reported having had her blood drawn and tested before she ate the tuna sandwich. Therefore, there is no way for viewers to know what her initial levels were. Without those results to establish a baseline reading, it is virtually impossible to know what impact eating that single tuna sandwich actually had on the levels of BPA in her blood.

In order to provide a clear, open and journalistically sound view of the alleged impact of eating a single tuna sandwich on Wallace’s BPA blood levels, we ask that you immediately release the results of any and all lab tests that were performed in the creation of your report.

Additionally you note that the report was designed to highlight the concerns “that high levels of BPA in the blood may be harmful.” If that is the case why weren’t Wallace’s final levels, whatever they may have been, compared to measurements the CDC would consider a safe level of exposure?

I find it particularly surprising that you would defend the piece by noting that “our report never stated that Ms. Wallace’s PBA levels from her initial test were the sole result of her eating a tuna sandwich.” Is CBS suggesting that is not the clear and demonstrable impression left by the report?

In the January 5, 2005 Report of the Independent Review Panel, CBS’s own assessment board found a paramount problem with the 60 Minutes segment titled “For The Record,” was that it created “misleading” impressions (p127). In this case, whether intentional or not, the impression is clearly left that the increase in BPA levels in her blood were the “sole result of her eating a tuna sandwich.” That is at best not supported by her experiment and at worst misleading.

I ask that you provide a transparent and public accounting of Wallace’s levels throughout the experiment and reevaluate this report.

Thank you for your continued attention to this serious issue.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

cc Bill Felling

National News Editor

Andy Schotz

Society of Professional Journalists

Ethics Committee Chair

Ever since last Friday’s statement from the U.S. FDA concerning the alleged health effects of Bisphenol A, activists have been engaging in a full court press on the issue even in the face of the fact that FDA stated that it didn’t have sufficient evidence to ban the use of the chemical.

But that hasn’t stopped activists like Bruce Lourie, the author of Slow Death by Rubber Duck, who appeared earlier today on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. After the host gave Lourie and and Rick Smith, an executive at the Environmental Defense Fund, more or less free reign to say whatever they pleased for most of the program, Lourie turned his sights to canned tuna.

Lourie said he normally ate a lot of tuna and believes that it’s part of a healthy diet. As part of his book, he conducted an experiment over a 48-hour period where he ate seven meals of either canned tuna or tuna sushi and then had his blood tested for mercury. If the trick sounds familiar, that’s because it’s essentially the same unscientific experiment that Sue Kwon of KPIX-TV in San Francisco tried to pull back in March 2009. If you have the time, be sure to watch our rebuttal video for a quick refresher. Lourie said that according to the results, his blood contained a level of mercury above what EPA considered to be safe, though, unlike Kwon, he failed to mention what that level might be. In any case, what was most egregious wasn’t just the fact that he passed off his little stunt as legitimate science, but that he said that as far as he was concerned, that the results indicated to him that anyone who is pregnant shouldn’t eat tuna at all. Of course, that flies in the face of the established FDA advisory that says that pregnant women can eat up to 6 ounces of albacore tuna per week, or 12 ounces of light tuna. It also ignores the conclusions of a study published in The Lancet that said that increased mercury levels in pregnant women may actually be a marker for better brain development in babies because it indicates that a woman regularly eats plenty of seafood.

The lesson here ought to be instructive: the question is not whether or not seafood contains mercury or that consuming seafood increases blood mercury levels. Instead, the real question is whether or not those trace levels of mercury cause any harm — and when it comes to that question, there’s plenty of science to indicate that it doesn’t.

This morning, as feared, we are seeing the erroneous parts of Kelly Wallace’s CBS News report on BPA recycled as fact on the internet. With evidence of that disturbing trend in hand I reached out to CBS again this morning.

I am genuinely surprised a network that played host to one of the most colossal fact-checking debacles in the history of broadcast journalism that cost Dan Rather the anchor chair he held for 24 years has not been more responsive.

This is an easily correctable mistake that hardly rises to the level that led to an intra-network review that resulted in wholesale firings and blistering criticism of CBS’ “strident defense” during the scandal’s aftermath.

Unless that culture of defend the product first and look for the facts later still exists at CBS perhaps the network should do what CNN does and thank concerned viewers for their vigilance while correcting the record.

January 20, 2010

Bill Felling

National News Editor

CBS News

VIA Email

Dear Mr. Felling,

It was just yesterday that I wrote you concerning several issues regarding basic journalistic standards as they relate to Kelly Wallace‘s report on the January 18^th edition of the Early Show. The problems I highlighted concerned Wallace’s non-scientific experiment that suggested a direct cause and effect relationship between Wallace’s personal BPA levels and the consumption of a single tuna sandwich.

My original letter, to which I have not received a response or an acknowledgment of receipt, expressed concern that CBS had let stand the erroneous implication that eating a single tuna sandwich elevated Wallace’s BPA blood levels to 5 times the average. A modicum of research and perspective would have exposed this suggestion as invalid, as Health Canada did when it noted that consumers would have to eat “several hundred cans of food per day” to approach an exposure level of concern.

As feared this morning I am beginning to note internet traffic that incorrectly cites Wallace’s conclusions as fact:

• “As Kelly Wallace from CBC News discovered, just eating one tuna sandwich caused BPA levels in her blood to soar to over five times the average BPA level found in the blood of American consumers.”

I urge you to address and correct this issue with haste before more misinformation is propagated.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

Yesterday CBS’s Early Show reported on the latest FDA interest in Bisphenol A, better known as BPA. This time they were talking about BPA in canned food. As part of their story reporter Kelly Wallace chose to embark on a non-scientific “experiment” that was more than a little off base. In fact it was down right misleading. So, we reached out to the folks who are in charge of editorial oversight at the Tiffany Network. Our letter is below:

January 19, 2010

Bill Felling

National News Editor

CBS News

VIA Email

Dear Mr. Felling,

I am writing to draw your attention to several issues regarding basic journalistic standards as they relate to Kelly Wallace‘s report on the January 18^th edition of the Early Show. The package slugged “FDA: Limit BPA Consumption,” contained a non-scientific experiment that suggested a direct cause and effect relationship between Wallace’s personal BPA levels and the consumption of a single tuna sandwich.

One minute and twelve seconds into her report Wallace announced it was “lunch time” and was shown eating a tuna sandwich that she reported was made with canned tuna, packed in a can that contained BPA. She then had her blood drawn and sent to a lab for testing.

25 seconds later, she reported on the BPA levels found in her “first result”-the blood test taken “shortly after” eating the canned tuna. Dr. Fred Vom Saal told Wallace that the levels of BPA found in her blood were more than 5 times the average for women in the U.S.

Was Wallace suggesting to CBS News viewers and the science and medial community that consuming one tuna sandwich directly resulted in such a reading? These levels would be completely out of the bounds of normal scientific and medical research on BPA if that was the case. If Wallace did not mean to infer such a connection this portion of the package should be re-edited to explain that.

Next, Wallace made no effort to explain what, if any, actual negative effects occur when someone is found to have BPA blood levels that exceed the average. She failed to report that Health Canada, the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. FDA, determined that the amount of BPA in canned foods, like tuna, does not rise to the level of concern. Health Canada states:

• “To put this into perspective, the average Canadian would need to consume several hundred cans of food per day to reach the tolerable level established by Health Canada.”

While Canadian researchers found consumers would need to eat hundreds of cans every day to approach this level of concern, Wallace’s report appeared to suggest a single sandwich had this effect on her.

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics states that Journalists should, “make certain that… video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.” Whether intentionally or unintentionally, in this case, Wallace’s work does just that.

We ask that you re-edit both the video and print versions of this story available on your web site.

Thank you for your attention and commitment to accuracy.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

Bear with me here of a moment as I review the last few days in the life of Alaska pollock-on Wednesday the fishery was cleared for Marine Stewardship Council recertification and then on Thursday Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) downgraded it from best choice to good alternative.

I’m sorry. Come again.

One day it’s cleared for MSC certification and the next it’s downgraded by MBA?

Pollock is a popular target for environmental groups who use exaggerated claims about the apparently always looming threat of collapse to raise eyebrows and, more importantly, money. It would appear MBA has fallen victim to the hyperbole pedaled by groups like Greenpeace.

Here’s a look at some of MBA’s comments about Alaska pollock:

• “Bycatch rates in the pollock fishery are generally low, but in recent years, the fishery has caught large numbers of Chinook salmon from stocks that are experiencing dramatic declines. It’s unclear the extent to which the pollock fishery is contributing to these declines.”
• “There’s also conflicting evidence about the role of the pollock fishery in the decline of the endangered Steller sea lion and Northern fur seal, both of which rely heavily on pollock for food.”
• “Despite these concerns, some aspects of pollock fishery management are progressive and precautionary. Management has taken steps toward an ecosystem-based approach that, relative to other fisheries worldwide, is considered highly effective.”

So, MBA is downgrading a species that is MSC certified and has a “progressive and precautionary” management system in place that is “highly effective” because of “conflicting evidence” and potential impacts which it is admittedly “unclear” about.

Sound like concrete reasons to you?

Alaska pollock has been, and continues to be, one of the best managed fish stocks in the world. Downgrading the stock so MBA can bring its metrics in line with bottom feeding types who insist on playing politics with pollock undercuts its own rankings.

Two days ago we reached out to CNN.com after a column on their web site erroneously characterized farmed salmon and sourced unqualified environmental activists in a piece about nutrition.

As they have done in the past CNN was quick to investigate the issues we raised and thoroughly address them. Today CNN.com has posted a new farmed salmon article that presents the latest in nutrition science with a much more balanced and accurate view of the fish.

Sometimes agenda-driven writers or fast-talking physicians will pepper their work with enviro-half-truths just to get a message out there… or maybe they’re doing 10 other things besides their nutra-muscle-building-get-slim-quick web site and don’t have time to do the proper research in order to accurately answer consumer questions.

But a recent posting on CNN.com didn’t fit into either of those laughable categories. In fact it was a posting by a legit doc who doesn’t appear to be shopping the cure for obesity, hypertension, erectile dysfunction and blindness in one delicious daily drink. And that’s what made it all the more concerning. Have a look at our latest letter to CNN.com:

January 12, 2010

Meredith Artley

Managing Editor

CNN.com

VIA Email

Dear Ms. Artley,

I am writing to draw your attention to several issues regarding basic journalistic standards as they relate to the information provided on CNN.com by Dr. Melina Jampolis in her response to a reader’s question titled “Is farm-raised salmon as healthy as wild?”

Jampolis begins her response noting that, “many people are confused about salmon consumption, which may lead them to eat less and miss out on all the terrific health benefits, especially when it comes to heart health.” She is correct – the US Food and Drug Administration recently estimated that if older men and women ate just 10% less fish, there would be an additional 4,000 deaths from heart disease and stroke a year. There are measurable consequences to seafood misinformation, and unfortunately the rest of her response is riddled with it.

Jampolis begins by quoting the American Heart Association’s recommendations for seafood consumption, and this is her first and last reference to an official health or nutrition organization. The next three full paragraphs exclusively source an environmental organization. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is not a public health organization and is not qualified to give nutrition guidance. Jane Houlihan is trained in Civil Engineering, and not surprisingly, her advice conflicts with nutrition science and the recommendations of leading health and nutrition organizations. Her organization’s stated goal is to “protect the health of the environment,” not human health; therefore, EWG is a wholly unsuitable source for CNN.com to utilize for nutrition advice in a health column.

As I am sure you know, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that journalists must “test the accuracy of information from all sources.” A cursory review of the independent, peer-reviewed research on the risks and benefits of eating salmon provides balance to the EWG’s opinion about pollutants and PCBs. Jampolis’s job as a journalist and physician nutrition specialist is to research and find out if her source’s rhetoric actually matches the science.

Had she done such research she would have found that EWG’s claims about the levels of PCBs in U.S. salmon are not supported. Independent, peer-reviewed published research from Harvard University, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reports that common everyday items like butter and even chicken contain far more PCBs that farmed salmon. The Harvard researchers also note that seafood broadly, not just farmed salmon, makes up only 9% of the PCBs in the average American diet, while products like vegetables make up 20%.

• “Although major sources of exposure to PCBs and dioxins are meats, dairy products, and vegetables, considerable attention has been given to fish sources.” – JAMA 2006;296:1885-1899

I would be surprised if I read on CNN.com that a doctor who specializes in nutrition would suggest, as she has for farmed salmon, that Americans limit their consumption of vegetables to once a week in order to avoid the 20% of PCBs that they contribute.

The Harvard research goes on to calculate the benefits and risks of eating farm-raised salmon. It concludes the health benefits of eating salmon – wild or farmed – are significant.

• “CHD benefits outweighed cancer risks by 100- to 370-fold for farmed salmon.” – JAMA 2006;296:1885-1899

To compliment limited wild stock, a large majority of the US salmon supply is farm-raised. To frighten consumers away from this available, affordable, rich source of omega-3s is irresponsible and damaging. The Harvard article concludes, “Avoidance of modest fish consumption due to confusion regarding risks and benefits could result in thousands of excess CHD deaths annually and suboptimal neurodevelopment in children.” Jampoliss article uses environmental activist rhetoric as reason to suggest readers limit their consumption of farmed salmon, while actual peer-reviewed science suggests the opposite.

We ask that you remove this column from your web site and address our concerns with sourcing, oversight and the journalistic integrity of CNN.com that are posed by this example.

Thank you for your attention to accuracy.

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

cc Roni Selig

Health & Medicine Senior Executive Producer