Today Greenpeace is asking supporters to “pre-order” sustainable skipjack tuna as a way of pressuring retailers and tuna companies in to sourcing only from pole and line caught operations– but it fails to properly highlight that skipjack, be it from the Pacific or the Atlantic, is already the most sustainably managed of all the tuna stocks worldwide.

Skipjack is plentiful and well managed, period.

Greenpeace has added a caveat to its latest campaign insisting that the method it is promoting is the most “socially sound.” It’s ironic to see Greenpeace pulling out the “social” card when it feels it needs a hook and ignoring it when it’s convenient.

If you know anything about sustainability you know there are three aspects that need to be considered at all times (in alphabetical order); economic, environmental and social. Greenpeace rarely takes even two of the three tenets into account when launching its misguided campaigns.

Let’s remember, when Greenpeace took aim at Alaska Pollock, one of the world’s best run fisheries with an impressive sustainability track record, it argued for unnecessarily inflated catch reductions that would have crippled the industry and cost hard working men and women their jobs. Where was its concern about the socially sound aspect of its own campaign back then?

Not to mention Greenpeace ignores the fact that the major tuna companies have just partnered with WWF to create the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF)– designed to do what? Oh that’d be over see and promote tuna sustainability. In fact when ISSF launched Greenpeace said publicly it was “great to see processors finally taking a stand.”

Greenpeace has a history of being late to these types of parties and then taking credit for things it had little or no role in.

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt believes it is okay to report something that another news outlet has reported without verifying, confirming or clarifying its authenticity and or currency as long as that other news outlet is”highly respected and reputable.” Even if NBC has been made aware that the information they are reporting is erroneous.

How do I know this? Well… they told me.

After we drew to their attention an error in Monday’s show, that they corrected, we reiterated that they had an error in Sunday’s show as well and the following email exchange with their standards department ensued:

From: Gavin Gibbons

Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:14 AM
To: Moriba-Meadows, Geraldine (NBC Universal)
Cc: Burkey, Patrick (NBC Universal)
Subject: RE: NBC Nightly News 04.20.09

Dear Ms. Morbia,

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Iwould also like tocall to your attention the fact that on Monday April 20 we sent Patrick Burkey Executive Producer ofNBC Nightly News with Lester Holt a letter expressing concern about a statistic/characterization cited in aSunday April 19th report. Please find that letter attached.

Your attention to this issue would be greatly appreciated as well.

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

From: Moriba-Meadows, Geraldine (NBC Universal)
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:20 PM
To: Gavin Gibbons
Subject: RE: NBC Nightly News 04.20.09

Mr. Gibbons,

Science is a highly respected and reputablemagazine. Their published research is peer reviewed.

Here is anexact transcript of Lester Holt’s introduction to this story for your records. Please note that the cause of your concern ispresented as a prediction and not a fact…

Lester Holt: Tonight we begin a special series on Oceans as part of NBC universals Green week. With the number of fish becoming dangerously low and a prediction that the world major fisheries could collapse by 2048. NBC chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson takes a look at the new efforts to keep the fish population thriving in part one of our special special series sea change our oceans, our planet and our future.

Thank you again for contacting me with your concerns.

Best,

Geraldine Moriba Meadows

From: Gavin Gibbons
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 12:56 PM
To: Moriba-Meadows, Geraldine (NBC Universal)
Subject: RE: NBC Nightly News 04.20.09

Dear Ms. Moriba Meadows,

Your continued and prompt attention to these issues is both impressive and appreciated.

However, while we agree that Science is in fact a highly respected and reputablemagazine and that itspublished research is peer reviewed (as was Worms’ 2006 report), that does not make its conclusions or even “predictions” valid today. As you will note in my original letter, independent professional criticism of this out-of-date predictionabounds inacademia, government andeven conservationists literature.

The Chicago Tribune is also a highly respected and reputable publication but its November 3, 1948 prediction: “Dewey Defeats Truman,” is obviously not valid today. Worm’s 2048 prediction is also no longer valid. One news outlet relying on another’swork still has a responsibility to fact check thecurrent validity ofwhat it is reporting.

Also noted in my letter,Boris Worm is currently in the process of completing a new study, set for publication this summer in, of all places, Science. He is working hand in hand with the very same detractors who had publicly railed against his 2048 prediction. Perhaps NBC should have, or should still, contact Dr. Worm and ask him, as the principal author of the prediction, whether it is accurate for NBC Nightly Newsto be reporting thatworld class marine ecologists still believe that, “the world’s major fisheries could collapse by 2048.”

I press this point not to be adversarial but simply to insist upon fairness and accuracy in reporting about fisheries and fisheries science.

Thank you for your work.

Gavin Gibbons

From: Moriba-Meadows, Geraldine (NBC Universal)
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:34 PM
To: Gavin Gibbons
Subject: RE: NBC Nightly News 04.20.09

Mr. Gibbons,

I respect your diligence, but we do believe that Lester Holt’sintroduction was both a fair and accurate representation of fisheries and fisheries science.

Thank you,

Geraldine

I was pleased to see NBC responded to our request for a change to its April 20th story so quickly. The email from the Senior Producer for Standards and Practices is below. You will notice NBC hedges and returns a face-saving rewrite of the graphic we challenged– allow me to translate:

• We were wrong, we will change it immediately.

Done and done.

Now we’re just waiting for a response to the request for a change to its April 19th story.

NBC Email:

Mr. Gibbons,

I received your email this afternoon and wanted to responded right away.

After communicating with the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Departmentour understanding is that stocks that are overexploited are not yet depleted, but are at high risk of becoming so.According to theFAOitwould be most correct toreport that”28 percent are depleted or at risk for depletion.”

Based onthe followingofficial FAO definitions this clarification would beboth fair and accurate…

Overexploited: The fishery is being exploited at above a level which is believed to be sustainable in the long term, with no potential room for further expansion and a higher risk of stock depletion/collapse;

Depleted: Catches are well below historical levels, irrespective of the amount of fishing effort exerted;

Wewill update our reporton Nightly.MSNBC.com.

Ihopethat this will address your concerns.

Thank you,

Geraldine Moriba

Geraldine Moriba Meadows

NBC News

Senior Producer

Standards and Practices

30 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10112

Apparently some lawmakers in Texas think they know better than doctors, dietitians and researchers when it comes to how to educate sensitive subpopulations about the trace amounts of the naturally occurring methylmercury found in fish.

The Texas House just passed a bill that calls for warning signs about mercury in seafood, directed at pregnant, to be posted in stores and it’s headed to the state senate.

Here’s the problem the federal advice on this subject authored by the FDA/EPA is very clear and very target: it says pregnant women, women who might become pregnant and young children should avoid four rarely eaten fish – shark, tilefish, swordfish and king mackerel. That advice is conveyed through doctors and dieticians because it is designed for a very specific population and not consumers broadly. The advice is not designed for average consumers but there are tremendous concerns about “spill over” effect and how that could negatively impact the general population.

You’re a fit 35 year old man and you see what amounts to a warning sign at the fish counter and, despite the fact that it doesn’t apply to you at all, you take a pass on a heart healthy staple-that sign has just had an unintended negative impact on public health. Or, worse, you’re a pregnant women and you see that sign but without a doctor or dietitian to explain that the omega-3 fatty acids found in seafood are essential to your baby’s brain and eye development you avoid not only the 4 on the list but all fish-another potential unintended negative impact on public health.

What’s more, women in this country don’t eat enough seafood, as it is, to even approach a level of concern. In fact the real concern found in the typical American diet is a lack of seafood. Simply put Americans aren’t eating enough fish to reap the health benefits, let alone introduce concerns based on eating too much.

A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) shows that on any given day only a fourth of the population eats any fish-based omega-3s, DHA or EPA, at all. This typical high meat, low seafood diet can lead to omega-3 deficiencies that negatively impact babies’ development.

FDA data shows women, especially pregnant women, eat seafood at levels far lower than those associated with optimal health benefits. The average American woman eats 2.97 ounces of seafood per week, and just 1.89 ounces per week during pregnancy. Yet crusading legislators think they need signs in stores to warn them away from a product they are already failing to consume to the point of benefit.

Having said all that, the larger fact is that the types of seafood that Americans do eat are species naturally lower in mercury. In fact the ten most commonly eaten fish represent 90% of the total seafood eaten in the United States and all are commercial fish with insignificant amounts of mercury.

Here’s hoping Lone Star politicians aided by misguided sound bite science don’t do the residents of their state a disservice.

This week NBC Nightly News is finding that details matter.

When journalists use vernacular where scientific specificity is called for or unresearched statistics they once heard in place of the most up to date information, they wander down a path where accusations of sloppiness and laziness mix with questions about ethics and integrity.

If you believe what you see on NCB Nightly News this week you might think all the fish in the ocean will be gone by 2048 and that the UN says 28% of all fish stocks are “depleted.” Both of these statistics are demonstrably erroneous and, in case they didn’t know before, NFI is letting them know that now.

Please find below two letters. The first is to Lesert Holt’s executive producer and the second is to Brian William’s executive producer. Herein we lay out the problems with NBC’s most recent reporting. The real disappointment is that the stories themselves have actually been pretty good-pretty balanced, pretty fair and pretty well put together but major errors like the ones detailed in these letters marginalize the reporting and allow its real focus to be called into question.

Are these just sloppy errors found in otherwise decent work or are they evidence of attempts to exaggerate for the sake of agenda or ratings– a proverbial sexing up of the dossier perhaps?

April 20, 2009

Patrick Burkey

Executive Producer

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt

30 Rockefeller Plz
New York, NY 10112

VIA Email

Dear Mr. Burkey,

I am writing to draw your attention to an error present in the Sunday April 19th edition of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.

As part of Mr. Holt’s introduction to Anne Thompson’s package he quotes a statistic that suggests “the world’s major fisheries could collapse by 2048.” A minimum of research would have revealed that this statistic is inaccurate and has been debunked by myriad scientists.

In fact, further investigation would have revealed that the very scientist who authored the original paper that made that postulation has been working on a new study, set for publication this summer that will stand in contrast to such hyperbole.

The claim, first made in a 2006 article published in Science magazine, was authored by marine biologist Boris Worm. Please find below independent professional criticism of the statistic, that Worm himself no longer promotes, from academia, government and even conservationists:

• Ray Hilborn, professor in the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Washington calls the statistic an example of “the faith based fisheries movement” which “threatens the very heart of the scientific process,” “fallacious and inappropriate to appear in a scientific journal,” and “just mind boggling stupid.”

• Scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Steven Murawski, Director of Scientific Programs and Chief Science Advisor; Richard Methot with the Office of Science and Technology; and Galen Tromble, Chief of Domestic Fisheries Division with the Office of Sustainable Fisheries – call the statistic’s conclusion “a meaningless projection [that] does not incorporate a large number of complex factors,” as well as “inaccurate and overly pessimistic.”

• Mike Beck, Senior Scientist of Marine Initiatives with the Nature Conservancy, writes, “the prediction of global fisheries collapse by 2048… was derived from a simplistic extrapolation that would get you an “F” in high school statistics” in the January 2007 edition of the Science Chronicles.

The National Fisheries Institute spoke with Ms. Thompson as she prepared for this report and were pleased to serve as a resource. We were disappointed to see NBC News lean on exaggeration in the introduction to a science-based report. While the statistic cited by Mr. Holt is shocking and goes a long way to creating an air of urgency in illustrating the issue, it is also outdated and inaccurate and does not have a place in responsible journalism.

Not unlike the headline in a newspaper, the introduction in a broadcast sets the tone for what is about to follow. online version of this story.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

———————————————————————

April 21, 2008

Bob Epstein

Executive Producer, NBCNightly News with Brian Williams

30 Rockefeller Plz
New York, NY 10112

VIA Email

Dear Mr. Epstein,

I am writing with regard to a story that aired last night on NBC Nightly News. Chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson produced a package as part of the “Sea Change” series and reported that according to the United Nations 28% of fish stocks are “depleted”-this graphic appears 16 second into her package and the statistic is incorrect.

The very latest United Nations report on The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture is very specific about the current status of fisheries resources. Likewise the terms it uses to describe the stocks are specific scientific characterizations and are not open to interpretation.

On page 30 of the UN’s report (page 48 of 196 in the PDF) the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department writes, “The other 28 percent were overexploited (19 percent), depleted (8 percent) or recovering from depletion (1 percent)…”

This report, and the science behind it, is very specific when it says 8 percent of the assessed stocks were found to be “depleted.” The terms found in this and other stock assessments are terms of science not art and should be reported as such. There is a significant difference between 28 percent and 8 percent.

We ask that you remove this report from your website until the erroneous graphic is changed and issue an on air correction.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

cc: Brian Williams, Managing Editor NBC Nightly News

——————————————————————————————

Our friends tell us a lot about who we are.

Here’s an example, Jackie Savitz over at Oceana is now on Twitter. She’s a well known environmental activist who doesn’t obscure the causes she supports or the campaigns she runs. She and I don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues but such is life. I know basically where she stands on certain things and generally we disagree– nothing wrong with that.

But something about her Twitter account caught my eye; her very first follower would appear to be Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Hawthorne. We’ve asked in the past whether Hawthorne was, like Savitz, an environmental activist or an independent journalist.

Just an observation in light of that ole’ birds of a feather saying.

It hasn’t been two hours since we told you about the Mercury Policy Project’s (MPP) proposed letter to the FDA and already the group is shopping around a significantly toned down version of its rhetoric filled rant. The new version includes abandoning its original ask that the FDA revise the government’s Action Level for mercury in fish, to adopt the two-tiered system used in other countries and adds a middle initial to the primary author’s name.

Let’s go through the edits for anyone who hasn’t seen the original so everyone can get a good sense of the tone and tenor of this group’s approach to discourse surrounding peer reviewed science.

Edit #1

Original: Our overall impression is that this report represents a massive failure.

Edit: Our overall impression is that this report is scientifically unsound and should not be the basis for any overall policy change by FDAto the joint FDA/EPAfederal fish consumption advisory for mercury.

Edit #2

Original: We believe the FDA report is an unsound and unacceptable basis for policy decisions.

Edit: Therefore, we believe the FDA report is an unsound and unacceptable basis for policy decisions.

Edit #3

Original: “…the relative magnitude of fish nutritional benefits compared with methylmercury risk. This is utter nonsense.”

Edit: “… the relative magnitude of fish nutritional benefits compared with methylmercury risk. This is an unsupportable hypothesis.” The record clearly shows that consumers can enjoy the health benefits they get by eating fish, and avoid the risks, by choosing low-mercury fish.”

Edit #4

Original: “…consumers can enjoy the health benefits they get by eating fish, and avoid the risks, by choosing low-mercury fish.”

Edit: “…the record clearly shows that consumers can enjoy the health benefits they get by eating fish, and avoid the risks, by choosing low-mercury fish.”

Edit #5

Original: “Moreover, that message is the essence of the joint EPA/FDA 2004 advisory on mercury in fish and seafood.”

Edit: “Moreover, the message that consumers should eat low mercury fish is the essence of the joint EPA/FDA 2004 advisory on mercury in fish and seafood.”

Edit #6

Original: “…by pouring resources into this analytical endeavor, the agency has set public health policy back five years, as if it had had no basis for the 2004 advisory.”

Edit: “…by pouring resources into this analytical endeavor, the report seems to infer that the FDA had had no basis for the 2004 advisory.”

Edit #7

Original: “The undersigned have not prepared a detailed scientific critique of the FDA report. We endorse the more extensive critical comments being submitted by Oceana (prepared by Dr. Kathryn Mahaffey) and the Mercury Policy Project (prepared by Dr. Edward Groth), as well as comments submitted by individual scientists such as Dr. Philippe Grandjean, and Jane Hightower, MD. We offer these brief criticisms of the FDA report for your consideration…”

Edit: “We offer these brief criticisms of the FDA report for your consideration…”

Edit #8

Original: “These findings (and others offered by MPP) are examples of exactly the information that needs to be conveyed to consumers…”

Edit: “These findings are examples of exactly the information that needs to be conveyed to consumers…”

Edit #9

Original: “Consider revising the FDA Action Level for mercury in fish, to adopt the two-tiered system used in many other countries, permitting up to 1 ppm in a selected number of large, predatory species, and limiting mercury in other fish to 0.5 ppm.”

Edit: –request removed–

Edit #10

Original: Michael Bender, Director Mercury Policy Project

Edit: Michael T. Bender, Director Mercury Policy Project

Please find a full unedited copy of the Mercury Policy Project’s revised email below:

April 2009

Docket No. FDA-2009-N-0018

COMMENTS ON the FDA Report on its “Quantitative Risk and Benefit

Assessment of Commercial Fish Consumption,”

Submitted by:

(List of Organizations)

Division of Dockets Management
HFA-305
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

To The FDA

The undersigned organizations are pleased to submit these comments on the draft FDA Quantitative Risk and Benefit Assessment of Commercial Fish Consumption,” which we will refer to simply as the FDA report.

Our overall impression is that this report is scientifically unsound and should not be the basis for any overall policy change by FDAto the joint FDA/EPAfederal fish consumption advisory for mercury. Lack of adequate recent data on fish consumption and other critical data gaps, have required FDA to make arbitrary, untested, and in some cases, obviously unsound and inappropriate assumptions in its model. FDA’s interpretation of many of the critical studies it cites is scientifically untenable, and the report is strongly biased in ways that undercut the credibility of the results. The analysis is therefore of very limited scientific value, except as a guide for research to collect data needed to carry out a more credible assessment.

Therefore, we believe the FDA report is an unsound and unacceptable basis for policy decisions. In addition, its very existence, and the enormous amount of effort it represents, suggest that policy should depend on the relative magnitude of fish nutritional benefits compared with methylmercury risk. This is an unsupportable hypothesis. The record clearly shows that consumers can enjoy the health benefits they get by eating fish, and avoid the risks, by choosing low-mercury fish.

Moreover, the message that consumers should eat low mercury fish is the essence of the joint EPA/FDA 2004 advisory on mercury in fish and seafood. FDA should be working much harder to disseminate that important and indisputably valid health message. Instead, by pouring resources into this analytical endeavor, the report seems to infer that the FDA had had no basis for the 2004 advisory. The report muddies the waters by suggesting that all fish are alike in terms of risks and benefits, obscuring critical distinctions between high-mercury and low-mercury fish. It sows confusion where clear, effective communication is needed.

We offer these brief criticisms of the FDA report for your consideration:

(1) The draft analysis of risks and benefits of fish and seafood consumption violates a basic principle of risk analysis, by attempting both a scientific task (risk assessment) and a value-laden risk management task (balancing risk against benefit) in the same analysis. This fundamental weakness introduces massive errors and biases into the risk assessment.

The most obvious bias involves commitment to a model that seeks to quantify the “net” effects of fish consumption, a largely meaningless construct. This decision forces many data-selections, data conversions and arbitrary assumptions, based on modeling criteria rather than sound scientific criteria such as data quality, relevance, degree of uncertainty, and the like. This bias also seems to have favored continuing with the analysis despite inadequate data that largely vitiate its results. A more subtle but equally important bias is the obvious higher priority given to, and greater interest of the authors in, documenting benefits of fish consumption, rather than assessing methylmercury risks. The “net” result is a benefits-driven model that fails to come adequately to grips with several critical risk-related issues.

(2) The FDA analysis is severely scientifically deficient. The model developed in the report is based on innumerable necessary, but often invalid, questionable and/or untested assumptions about mercury exposure, intake of beneficial nutrients, magnitude of effects, and many other critical factors. The report contains numerous scientific errors, ranging from a widespread failure to understand and correctly interpret epidemiological data, to occasional attempts to restate the findings of pivotal studies in terms more amenable to the FDA’s analytical model. More often than not, these efforts distort and misrepresent original research findings.

In our judgment, the draft report is insufficiently candid about the weaknesses in the data it relied on; the arbitrary, debatable nature of many of its key assumptions; and the strong likelihood that its interpretations of key studies differ from judgments of the same data made by experts in the research fields the data are drawn from. This lack of scientific caveats tends to understate the enormous uncertainties about and the questionable validity of the results, projecting false confidence that the analysis is reliable, when in fact its credibility is very much in doubt.

(3) The report frames its analysis around a false dichotomy: Should consumers eat fish to gain nutritional benefits, and accept the risks of mercury exposure? Or should they avoid fish to minimize mercury exposure, and lose out on the benefits? This mind-set pays too little attention to the obvious “win/win” approach, advising consumers to eat more low-mercury fish.

(4) In its comments, The Mercury Policy Project provides a detailed analysis of mercury levels in different fish and shellfish, showing the contributions of 50 different varieties of seafood to the mercury in the US supply of fish and shellfish. MPP separates the 50 fish and seafood items into six categories by mercury level. We endorse that approach, which among other findings, supports the following conclusions:

• One-third of the total annual seafood supply contains just 4.7 percent of the total mercury. This very-low-mercury category includes several widely consumed fish and shellfish, such as shrimp, salmon, tilapia and sardines, showing that consumers can easily find very-low-mercury varieties, if motivated to do so.
• The three categories with the highest mercury levels include 21 varieties of fish and shellfish (42 percent of the varieties examined). These 21 higher-mercury varieties account for just 11 percent of the seafood volume consumed, but contain 47 percent of the mercury in the US seafood supply.
• Tuna fish (canned albacore, canned light and fresh/frozen combined) accounts for 28 percent of the total mercury, and 59 percent of the mercury in the 21 higher-mercury varieties.
• Swordfish, tilefish, shark and king mackerel make up just 0.25 percent of the supply of fish and shellfish, but contain 4.2 percent of the mercury-almost as much as the entire very-low-mercury category, which is 32 percent of the supply.
• Canned light tuna contains twice as much mercury as the weighted average for the seafood supply as a whole, and can in no way be considered a low-mercury choice.

These findings are examples of exactly the information that needs to be conveyed to consumers, so that they can intelligently manage their mercury exposure while they enjoy a variety of fish and shellfish in their diets.

(5) MPP’s comments review several recent scientific studies that strongly suggest that exposure to methylmercury can harm the developing fetal brain, even at the low doses associated with typical American fish consumption. There appears to be no threshold for this toxic effect within the range of ordinary exposure. Nutritional benefits of maternal fish consumption during pregnancy do not reduce the urgent need to help women avoid this entirely avoidable risk by advising them to choose low-mercury fish. FDA’s draft report cites several of the studies but fails to grasp their significance.

(6) MPP also reviews evidence that strongly suggests that toxic effects of methylmercury occur in populations other than women of childbearing age, such as adults and children who consume much more fish than average and repeatedly eat high-mercury fish. MPP estimates that there could be 275,000 Americans with blood mercury levels above the 99.9th percentile. Those individuals may experience subtle toxic effects, and are clearly a second population at risk from mercury in the fish they eat. Here, too, we see an urgent need to communicate effectively to such consumers the information they need to choose low-mercury fish.

Based on the points made here and the more detailed comments submitted by others with whom we have stated our agreement, we ask FDA to take the following actions:

• Consider the draft risk/benefit assessment to be an object lesson in the difficulty of doing such an assessment, with results that are not scientifically credible. Abandon any plans to use this assessment as a basis for policy decisions.
• Begin again and focus on collecting data that will support a sounder risk assessment, one that focuses on the consumption of higher-mercury fish. The first step probably should be to commission a survey to get much better data about consumption of fish and shellfish varieties with elevated (i.e., > 0.1 ppm) mercury levels.
• Promote the nutritional benefits of fish consumption and the importance of reducing mercury exposure by consistently and unequivocally advising consumers to choose low mercury fish.
• Expand efforts to disseminate the current EPA/FDA advisory on mercury in fish, which has not yet reached most Americans effectively.
• Develop a new, additional advisory for people who eat a great deal of fish, making clear the mercury levels in different fish and shellfish, and those consumers’ need to choose low-mercury varieties.
• Revise the current EPA/FDA advisory and all related information to remove canned light tuna, a moderately high-mercury product, from the list of “low-mercury” fish.
• Enforce the Action Level. The current policy of allowing fish that contain more than 1 ppm to be sold without penalty sends a message that mercury in fish is not a public health concern. Some enforcement is needed to reverse that misimpression.
• Consider making a joint request, with the EPA, for a new NAS/NRC review of recent scientific evidence on health effects of methylmercury, with emphasis on studies that suggest that ordinary levels of exposure, associated with typical US fish consumption, can have significant adverse impacts on prenatal cognitive development.

Thank you for considering these comments.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael T. Bender, Director
Mercury Policy Project
Montpelier, VT

Dennis Shekinah, President
Watauga Watershed Alliance
Mountain City, TN

Sherri Norris
California Indian Environmental Alliance
Berkeley, CA

Christine G. Cordero
Center for Environmental Health
Oakland, CA

Dr. Barry Kohl, President
Louisiana Audubon Council

Wheedling distortion and stale, stifled, outdated scientific thinking like a weapon Michael Bender, the one-man-band who makes up the Mercury Policy Project (MMP), appears to have set his sights on hijacking the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) latest work on mercury and seafood.

MMP is circulating an email to like-minded activists asking them to sign on to its 1,600-word manifesto that takes aim at the FDA’s draft report. Bender and his activist allies spend page after page restaging an outdated attack on seafood that we have seen before.

The FDA report is full of thought provoking, paradigm-shifting work in the area of risk/benefit analysis that has been peer reviewed by scientists and medical doctors from research institutions like the University of Washington, Harvard School of Public Health and Children’s Hospital and Research Center at Oakland Oakland, CA. But Bender, who is not a scientist, apparently believes he knows better than not only the FDA but the team of gold standard reviewers who have already weighed in on the report.

MMP’s letter begins with its usual the sky-is-falling hyperbole that terms the report a “massive failure” and suggests, without citation, that the draft includes a “lack of adequate recent data on fish consumption.” It makes this assertion before it goes on to extrapolate its own distorted analysis of seafood consumption and dietary mercury intake; in a letter designed for review by food science and policy professionals it seems arrogant for an author to think he could snow his audience so easily.

In its letter, MMP does not attempt to hide its obstinate reliance on obsolete scientific thinking, rather than being open to the true dynamics of the scientific process. In fact, it openly champions a return to “a basic principle of risk analysis” represented by the precautionary principle – that stands opposed to a common sense “balancing [of] risk against benefit.” MMP insists that a model that seeks to “quantify the net’ effects of fish consumption” is “largely meaningless.” The Mercury Policy Project has the word Mercury in its moniker and via its own letter it is clear mercury is the only thing it is interested in focusing on – even if that focus comes at the detriment of the public health of millions of Americans.

To suggest that the full story of seafood and the scientifically proven dietary impacts of its omega-3 fatty acids on heart health and baby brain development is largely meaningless, when looking at the net effects of fish consumption, is nonsensical and exposes MMP’s argument as a frantic attempt to suppress forward thinking science.

MMP suggests the FDA should be working harder to promote the 2004 EPA/FDA advisory on mercury rather than working on research that could in any way change that advisory. An advisory, research continues to show, that has caused a drop in pregnant women’s consumption of seafood across the broad and not just in the rarely eaten species highlighted by the advisory itself. Studies show this drop in seafood consumption and subsequent omega-3 deficiencies can be detrimental to a baby’s brain development. Understanding and recognizing this type of work calls for more than just a steadfast, head-in-the-sand reliance on a 5-year old advisory, it means being open to new evidence and new thinking, even if it undermines long-cherished beliefs grounded more strongly in ideology than scientific inquiry.

The USDA updates its dietary guidelines for Americans every 5 years like clockwork. Would MMP suggest USDA not consider revising its recommendations and rely only on an outdated food pyramid, regardless of what nutrition science tells us today?

MMP’s letter not only endorses the scientific status quo, it states that the FDA’s analysis was developed with “often invalid,” “questionable” and “untested” assumptions about mercury exposure and intake of beneficial nutrients. Perhaps such a finding would have been taken into account by the peer reviewers who combed the report before it was released. Or is MPP suggesting the doctor of pharmacology and toxicology, the doctor of epidemiology, the doctor of cardiovascular epidemiology, the doctor of public health and or the chemical engineer missed such glaring errors that would invalidate their review?

What’s more, when MPP presents its own work, it is buried in a cacophony of numbers that are supposed to somehow illustrate varying degrees of mercury in seafood and consumption volumes. Rather than clarify their argument, MPP’s data instead obscures one very key point that even it can’t deny:

• 10 species make up more than 90 percent of all the seafood eaten in this country and all 10 of those species are low in mercury. In fact, three species have levels so low they are categorized by the FDA as having “mercury concentration below detection level.” The rest are either under MMP’s own, absurdly low, standard for “elevated mercury levels” or come nowhere close to meeting, much less exceeding the FDA’s defect action level.

What you won’t find in MPP’s letter are facts it likely hopes the FDA won’t promote: on average Americans eat a little more than 16 lbs of seafood a year, less than half of the 39 lbs or 12 ounces a week that health experts advise. You also won’t find MPP promoting the fact that studies show women lose far more benefit as a result of decreased fish consumption than they gain in so called protection from the trace amount of mercury found in seafood.

How out of step and out of touch does MMP seem when it is exposed as trying to limit consumption of a healthy food that doctors and dietitians say people eat too little of to begin with?

Surely MMP will not be alone in its sins of omission. The group openly endorses the forthcoming comments of the environmental lobbying group Oceana – second to none in the ability to distort findings and hide their anti-seafood agenda behind a thinly-veiled public health scheme. It also publicly supports the impending remarks of a researcher whose seafood consumption study involved whale meat not fish (Grandjean) and a doctor whose own published work on mercury does not support the symptomatic link between what she says her patients are eating and what they are feeling (Hightower.)

We believe informed readers will come to see the FDA’s draft report is an example of new thinking and scientific progress. Perhaps those same readers and others will see MMP’s letter is an example of an attempt to obstruct progress for fear it will conflict with an long-established agenda.

Please find a full unedited copy of the Mercury Policy Project’s email below:

April 21, 2009

Docket No. FDA-2009-N-0018

COMMENTS ON the FDA Report on its “Quantitative Risk and Benefit

Assessment of Commercial Fish Consumption,”

Submitted by:

(List of Organizations)

Division of Dockets Management
HFA-305
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

To The FDA:

The undersigned organizations are pleased to submit these comments on the draft FDA Quantitative Risk and Benefit Assessment of Commercial Fish Consumption,” which we will refer to simply as the FDA report.

Our overall impression is that this report represents a massive failure. Lack of adequate recent data on fish consumption and other critical data gaps, have required FDA to make arbitrary, untested, and in some cases, obviously unsound and inappropriate assumptions in its model. FDA’s interpretation of many of the critical studies it cites is scientifically untenable, and the report is strongly biased in ways that undercut the credibility of the results. The analysis is therefore of very limited scientific value, except as a guide for research to collect data needed to carry out a more credible assessment.

We believe the FDA report is an unsound and unacceptable basis for policy decisions. In addition, its very existence, and the enormous amount of effort it represents, suggest that policy should depend on the relative magnitude of fish nutritional benefits compared with methylmercury risk. This is utter nonsense. Consumers can enjoy the health benefits they get by eating fish, and avoid the risks, by choosing low-mercury fish.

Moreover, that message is the essence of the joint EPA/FDA 2004 advisory on mercury in fish and seafood. FDA should be working much harder to disseminate that important and indisputably valid health message. Instead, by pouring resources into this analytical endeavor, the agency has set public health policy back five years, as if it had had no basis for the 2004 advisory. The report muddies the waters by suggesting that all fish are alike in terms of risks and benefits, obscuring critical distinctions between high-mercury and low-mercury fish. It sows confusion where clear, effective communication is needed.

The undersigned have not prepared a detailed scientific critique of the FDA report. We endorse the more extensive critical comments being submitted by Oceana (prepared by Dr. Kathryn Mahaffey) and the Mercury Policy Project (prepared by Dr. Edward Groth), as well as comments submitted by individual scientists such as Dr. Philippe Grandjean, and Jane Hightower, MD.

We offer these brief criticisms of the FDA report for your consideration:

(1) The draft analysis of risks and benefits of fish and seafood consumption violates a basic principle of risk analysis, by attempting both a scientific task (risk assessment) and a value-laden risk management task (balancing risk against benefit) in the same analysis. This fundamental weakness introduces massive errors and biases into the risk assessment.

The most obvious bias involves commitment to a model that seeks to quantify the “net” effects of fish consumption, a largely meaningless construct. This decision forces many data-selections, data conversions and arbitrary assumptions, based on modeling criteria rather than sound scientific criteria such as data quality, relevance, degree of uncertainty, and the like. This bias also seems to have favored continuing with the analysis despite inadequate data that largely vitiate its results. A more subtle but equally important bias is the obvious higher priority given to, and greater interest of the authors in, documenting benefits of fish consumption, rather than assessing methylmercury risks. The “net” result is a benefits-driven model that fails to come adequately to grips with several critical risk-related issues.

(2) The FDA analysis is severely scientifically deficient. The model developed in the report is based on innumerable necessary, but often invalid, questionable and/or untested assumptions about mercury exposure, intake of beneficial nutrients, magnitude of effects, and many other critical factors. The report contains numerous scientific errors, ranging from a widespread failure to understand and correctly interpret epidemiological data, to occasional attempts to restate the findings of pivotal studies in terms more amenable to the FDA’s analytical model. More often than not, these efforts distort and misrepresent original research findings.

In our judgment, the draft report is insufficiently candid about the weaknesses in the data it relied on; the arbitrary, debatable nature of many of its key assumptions; and the strong likelihood that its interpretations of key studies differ from judgments of the same data made by experts in the research fields the data are drawn from. This lack of scientific caveats tends to understate the enormous uncertainties about and the questionable validity of the results, projecting false confidence that the analysis is reliable, when in fact its credibility is very much in doubt.

(3) The report frames its analysis around a false dichotomy: Should consumers eat fish to gain nutritional benefits, and accept the risks of mercury exposure? Or should they avoid fish to minimize mercury exposure, and lose out on the benefits? This mind-set pays too little attention to the obvious “win/win” approach, advising consumers to eat more low-mercury fish.

(4) In its comments, The Mercury Policy Project provides a detailed analysis of mercury levels in different fish and shellfish, showing the contributions of 50 different varieties of seafood to the mercury in the US supply of fish and shellfish. MPP separates the 50 fish and seafood items into six categories by mercury level. We endorse that approach, which among other findings, supports the following conclusions:

• One-third of the total annual seafood supply contains just 4.7 percent of the total mercury. This very-low-mercury category includes several widely consumed fish and shellfish, such as shrimp, salmon, tilapia and sardines, showing that consumers can easily find very-low-mercury varieties, if motivated to do so.
• The three categories with the highest mercury levels include 21 varieties of fish and shellfish (42 percent of the varieties examined). These 21 higher-mercury varieties account for just 11 percent of the seafood volume consumed, but contain 47 percent of the mercury in the US seafood supply.
• Tuna fish (canned albacore, canned light and fresh/frozen combined) accounts for 28 percent of the total mercury, and 59 percent of the mercury in the 21 higher-mercury varieties.
• Swordfish, tilefish, shark and king mackerel make up just 0.25 percent of the supply of fish and shellfish, but contain 4.2 percent of the mercury-almost as much as the entire very-low-mercury category, which is 32 percent of the supply.
• Canned light tuna contains twice as much mercury as the weighted average for the seafood supply as a whole, and can in no way be considered a low-mercury choice.

These findings (and others offered by MPP) are examples of exactly the information that needs to be conveyed to consumers, so that they can intelligently manage their mercury exposure while they enjoy a variety of fish and shellfish in their diets.

(5) MPP’s comments review several recent scientific studies that strongly suggest that exposure to methylmercury can harm the developing fetal brain, even at the low doses associated with typical American fish consumption. There appears to be no threshold for this toxic effect within the range of ordinary exposure. Nutritional benefits of maternal fish consumption during pregnancy do not reduce the urgent need to help women avoid this entirely avoidable risk by advising them to choose low-mercury fish. FDA’s draft report cites several of the studies but fails to grasp their significance.

(6) MPP also reviews evidence that strongly suggests that toxic effects of methylmercury occur in populations other than women of childbearing age, such as adults and children who consume much more fish than average and repeatedly eat high-mercury fish. MPP estimates that there could be 275,000 Americans with blood mercury levels above the 99.9th percentile. Those individuals may experience subtle toxic effects, and are clearly a second population at risk from mercury in the fish they eat. Here, too, we see an urgent need to communicate effectively to such consumers the information they need to choose low-mercury fish.

Based on the points made here and the more detailed comments submitted by others with whom we have stated our agreement, we ask FDA to take the following actions:

• Consider the draft risk/benefit assessment to be an object lesson in the difficulty of doing such an assessment, with results that are not scientifically credible. Abandon any plans to use this assessment as a basis for policy decisions.
• Begin again and focus on collecting data that will support a sounder risk assessment, one that focuses on the consumption of higher-mercury fish. The first step probably should be to commission a survey to get much better data about consumption of fish and shellfish varieties with elevated (i.e., > 0.1 ppm) mercury levels.
• Promote the nutritional benefits of fish consumption and the importance of reducing mercury exposure by consistently and unequivocally advising consumers to choose low mercury fish.
• Expand efforts to disseminate the current EPA/FDA advisory on mercury in fish, which has not yet reached most Americans effectively.
• Develop a new, additional advisory for people who eat a great deal of fish, making clear the mercury levels in different fish and shellfish, and those consumers’ need to choose low-mercury varieties.
• Revise the current EPA/FDA advisory and all related information to remove canned light tuna, a moderately high-mercury product, from the list of “low-mercury” fish.
• Consider revising the FDA Action Level for mercury in fish, to adopt the two-tiered system used in many other countries, permitting up to 1 ppm in a selected number of large, predatory species, and limiting mercury in other fish to 0.5 ppm.
• Enforce the Action Level. The current policy of allowing fish that contain more than 1 ppm to be sold without penalty sends a message that mercury in fish is not a public health concern. Some enforcement is needed to reverse that misimpression.
• Consider making a joint request, with the EPA, for a new NAS/NRC review of recent scientific evidence on health effects of methylmercury, with emphasis on studies that suggest that ordinary levels of exposure, associated with typical US fish consumption, can have significant adverse impacts on prenatal cognitive development.

Thank you for considering these comments.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael Bender, Director
Mercury Policy Project

Do you remember as a kid looking at the picture of a toy on the box and then opening it and finding it didn’t quite match the sell job created by the artist’s conception? I distinctly remember being a youngster and finding the difference between a remote controlled car and a radio controlled car meant one has a cord attached to the controller and the other didn’t. I wasn’t quite sold a bill of goods but the sales job didn’t quite match reality. These days I find that headlines often over sell the product and under deliver on content.

Today’s US News and World Report asks; Fish Oil Supplements, EPA, DHA, and ALA: Does Your Omega-3 Source Matter? A few weeks ago the New York Times had a headline that read: The Claim: Fish Oil Supplements Can Contain Mercury. In both of these cases a quick declarative sentence can either answer the question or dispel the myth-hardly the pay off a reader might be looking for with such inquiring headlines. Does the source matter? Yes. Do supplements contain mercury? No.

Responsible members of the media know that