Quick name a Tony award winning actor who is not Huge Jackman. I didn’t think so.

Those finger-on-the-pulse-of-mainstream-America Broadway watchers over at the New York Times have crafted yet another rehash of the stale Jeremy-Piven-claims-to-have-mercury-poisoning story.

This time the saga is complete with excerpts from the arbitrator’s ruling that ended the contract dispute. But it’s also complete with gems about how Piven “stunned the theater world in December by bolting the revival of David Mamet’s Hollywood drama “Speed-the-Plow.”

I had no idea the theater world was “stunned.” Nor did I or most people really care.

Question, are we ever going to stop hearing about this in the media?

Yesterday the Center for Science in the Public Interest released its distorted list of what it calls the “riskiest” foods. More than a few observers questioned why, for instance, CSPI insisted on claiming tuna was the third most risky food to eat when by its own calculations eight other foods on the list caused more illnesses.

What’s more, alert blogs like NewsBusters pointed out some of the most absurd contradictions from CSPI to date. If you read CSPI’s Nutrition Action News Letter you’ll see it promoting it’s Top Ten Super Foods For Better Health — at least three of those Super Foods are also named on its list of Riskiest Foods. So, employing CSPI’s matrix, it’s encouraging people to eat some of the riskiest foods– got it.

Those same news watchers made a good point when they singled out CNN for praise. The medical team and CNN Money were clearly guided by an interest in the facts when they reported this story and not interested in CSPI’s cherry-picked statistical hyperbole that danced around the fact that it had excluded from its report beef, chicken and pork-the proteins Americans eat the most of.

While CSPI claims to want to protect America’s food, it feeds journalists garbage and some appear to be catching on.

The following fall under the category of, did you know?

Did you know that the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is headed up by a lawyer? Did you know that by trade she’s a lobbyist not a scientist?

Did you also know that until she was exposed in a front page story as a lawyer/lobbyist and not a scientist she was being considered by the Obama administration to run the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service?

Did you know the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service has jurisdiction over the safety of beef, pork and chicken?

Did you know CSPI excluded beef, pork and chicken from its list of “risky” foods and chose only to focus on foods that FDA has jurisdiction over?

Did you notice that CSPI ranked tuna as its #3 riskiest food but careful examination of the list shows that 8 other foods on the list have more reported illnesses than tuna?

Later this morning the scaremongers at the Center for Science in the Public Interest will be holding a news conference detailing what it says are the “top 10 riskiest foods” the FDA needs to pay closer attention to. It’s important for reporters to note that by focusing on FDA the report excludes beef, chicken and some egg products, which means that the vast majority of proteins eaten by Americans aren’t even considered.

One of the foods on the list is tuna, which CSPI is describing as risky because of the possibility that scombrotoxin may form when fresh tuna isn’t stored and handled correctly. Before CSPI gets off on a tangent about the dangers of tuna lets use its own numbers to get some perspective on the issue. You see, as it turns out berries have 10 times fewer outbreaks than tuna but cause a thousand more illnesses. I think were unlikely to see CSPI promoting headlines that say things like; seafood a thousand times safer than the berries you put on your breakfast cereal.

The possible formation of scombrotoxin in tuna is an issue that the canned tuna industry has been dealing with successfully for decades. As CSPI’s own report notes, scombrotoxin forms when fresh tuna is stored at temperatures above 60 F. The best way for consumers and restaurateurs to avoid the problem in fresh tuna is to ensure that they follow long established guidelines on the storage and handling of tuna, primarily by keeping it refrigerated properly. Put simply, just by following some common sense guidelines, consumers can avoid the vast majority of food borne illnesses. Click here to see those guidelines from Healthytuna.

And then there are oysters. Perspective is sorely needed here too. Should people with liver diseases and who are immune compromised avoid raw oysters? You bet they should and no one would suggest otherwise. As CSPI puts it Vibrio is the the more dangerous of the two pathogens found in oysters and it is but its Vibrio vulnificus thats the real concern and only 30 to 35 people (who are in a significant at-risk category) are affected by this each year. Keep in mind 30 to 35 cases out of 3,400 illnesses from the literally billions of raw oysters eaten every year.

Thats billion with a B and perspective with a P.

Earlier today, a study was published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, that suggested mercury in fishmay be linked to increased blood pressure among a population in arctic Canada that eats mostly predator fish and marine mammals . It should be noted that in an interview with the publication, HealthDay, the lead researcher on the study, Dr. Eric Dewailly, a professor in the department of social and preventive medicine at Laval University in Quebec, said that the findings should not lead people to eat less fish.

“The small increase of blood pressure due to methylmercury will never outweigh the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids,” Dewailly told HealthDay. Dewailly’s full comments to HealthDay can be found online at U.S. News and World Report. The American Heart Association has long recommended Americans eat a variety of seafood at least twice a week to promote cardiovascular health. That guidance is supported by numerous large-scale studies on the topic of seafood and heart health. This new study does not in any way change that recommendation. The overwhelming majority of scientific research shows that Americans need to eat more seafood, not less, and that not eating enough seafood contributes to a staggering 84,000 deaths per year.

Oceana, long a Greenpeace wannabe, with lesser credentials and even lesser reach is trying to pull its own Alaska pollock type rhetorical attack on Pacific whiting. Here’s an article in which Oceana says the fishery is “collapsing” and is “approaching an overfished condition.” Despite the fact that it’s just been certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council and Fish Watch says the “population levels of Pacific whiting are high, and no overfishing is occurring.”

Is one time pescatarian Jeremy Piven a pescaholic? It would appear that he just can’t stop eating fish, despite erroneously claiming he came down with mercury poising from eating too much seafood. You’ll remember he quit a Broadway play, and thus broke his contract, after claiming he had been diagnosed with mercury poising (a diagnosis that independent doctors, even the pretended ones on House, scoff at.) To cure him of his condition he told Dianne Sawyer on Good Morning American that he had sworn off fish. But according to the Chicago Sun Times he’s back chowing down on seafood like nothing happened. Perhaps because… wait for it… wait for it… nothing did happen. Enjoy the fish Ari.

I wonder if the Old Grey Lady rolled out of bed this morning and upon reading the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council’s latest press release said, “dough!”

You see, it wasn’t but just a few weeks ago that the Times was reporting about the New Zealand Hoki fishery’s history and the “ominous signs of overfishing.” Well, today the New Zealand Minister of Fisheries announced an increase in the allowable commercial catch of Hoki by 20,000 tons.

20,000 tons later, to borrow from Mark Twain, it would appear the reports of Hoki’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

It would appear Greenpeace thinks its potential donors have been living under a rock or haven’t read a newspaper since July. Just yesterday the once-proud activist group stooped to sullying its name, again (read ahhhh-gain), in order to scare supporters into coughing up their hard earned cash.

This timeit let supporters know that, “In a paper published in the leading scientific journal Science, marine biologists projected that most commercial fisheries would collapse by 2048 if current trends continue.”

And Greenpeace is right such a paper was published in Science back in 2006-however Greenpeace absolutely 100%, without question, knows that the author of that paper updated his research just this past July and that work was also published in the journal Science. His latest work says that 2048 statistic was wrong. The researcher himself even said he hopes to host a seafood party in 2048.

Greenepeace knows it is being disingenuous when it uses that 2048 statistic and apparently doesn’t care about distorting the record as long as it raises cash. Just like everyone else Greenpeace read the stories that came out after the 2048 statistic was put to bed; Seafood extinction fears unfounded, study finds, New hope for fisheries, Having Fish and Eating It Too.

Greenpeace knows it’s pedaling distortions in order to make money but who can really blame em– how else is it going to pay for that shiny new 30 million dollar boat it just ordered. Oh, you hadn’t heard about that. Yeah, apparently there’s no economic belt tightening going on at ole’ Greenpeace, but come on who doesn’t need a boat, with a helicopter pad of course,that fits 32 while the rest of the world claws its way out of a recession?

The New Zealanders aren’t backing down from their complaints about the New York Times reporting on Hoki. In fact they’re expanding their effort to get multiple editors at the Times to review the reporting and weigh in.

If you haven’t read it already their latest letter to the Times really trims all the fat off the argument and pares it down to about three main problems with the report. There are some precise targeted questions the Kiwi’s ask that really do appear to deserve a well researched response.

At this point the Times risks looking a little ridiculous if it continues to dodge questions about its reporting with the ole’ agree to disagree line.