Remember not too many years ago when blearily-eyed activist groups were tearing at their collective hair with an appropriate chorus of hyperbolic why, why, why in response to a study that claimed the oceans would be empty by 2048? It turns out this erroneous prediction of an aquatic, jellyfish apocalypse was even more off the mark than first thought.

Enter the FAOs latest oceans snap shot where it turns out 71% of all fisheries are fished within sustainable levels #oops.

The painfully redundant and ineffective Greenpeace fundraising tool known as the Carting Away The Oceans report has been released and this time it has decimal points. Once a cartoonish mishmash of futile rhetoric about grocery store seafood sourcing policy, coupled with an unscientific ranking of stores, the report has been cleaned up a bit. While it doesnt quite fit into its big boy pants yet, it does have decimal points which makes everything more official.

The report still uses a completely non-transparent system to apply random rankings to retailers and then delves into discussion about those rankings as if they have some sort of actual standing in the real world. Greenpeace crows about how, of the top five grocery stores that lead in seafood sustainability for 2014four have performed well enough to surpass the 7.0/10 mark and earn a green rating. What they dont mention is that the rating means nothing and no one cares.

Dont misunderstand, at this point in this groundhog day-like campaign, Greenpeace doesnt think actual consumers wait anxiously by the printer for the new report so they can pour over it with a pen, noting key points that will influence their next purchase. No, thats not happening and Greenpeace doesnt think thats whats happening unless its shockingly more delusional that most assume. The real audience is big money contributors and foundations who Greenpeace must impress with all of its progress. But instead the foundations get quasi-fiction peppered with ratings created by a secret Rube Goldberg decimal generating machine.

No matter what grocers do it will never be enough to gain and keep a high rating. The reports former golden boys routinely find themselves facing hurdles or finding out theres still much more to be done despite all the work they do day in and day out to maintain a sustainable seafood supply.

Whats more Greenpeaces childish, sibling-like sniping towards the respected conservation group WWF is embarrassingly evident in their ranking of Kroger. The chain has had a long running and successful relationship with WWF. A relationship the petulant Greenpeace dismisses as having promoted minimal improvement and earned them the worst performing title in the Red List category. Once again WWF is in the boardroom making significant progress with companies while Greenpeace is in the parking lot protesting in costumes and being ignored by the multitudes who are embarrassed for them.

Recognizing its own ineffectiveness and continuing track into obscurity the report expands its rhetoric to any issue that might pique someones attention; GMO, Human Rights, Bering Sea canyons. Next year we expect at least one page on Grocery store policies towards Beyonc.

Carting Away The Oceans just carted away 20 minutes of my time that I will never get back.

April 24, 2014

Meredith Artley

Managing Editor

CNN Digital

VIA Email

Dear Ms. Artley,

I am writing to express concern about the article 5 ‘healthy’ foods that can backfire. CNN.com notes that the content was generated by your sister site upwave.com. Of course, from a journalism perspective, CNN.com is responsible for the accuracy of whatever content appears on its site.

The article in question claims sushi with raw seafood can be putting consumers at risk based on exposure to a toxic heavy metal called mercury. This is inaccurate and the source of the information is cited as the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC.)

NRDC is not an appropriate source for scientifically based nutrition advice. In fact, a May 2009 survey of toxicologists conducted by The Center for Health Risk Communication at George Mason University found that 79% of professional toxicologists believe that NRDC overstates the health risks of chemicals. Following the announcement of that survey, NRDC’s Health and Environment Program, declared: “We’re an advocacy group and we don’t hold ourselves out as scientific researchers. We don’t do peer reviewed science. Everybody knows that.”

Meanwhile, the most up to date, published, peer-reviewed USDA/FDA Dietary Guidelines state that, the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks. Whats more, there are no cases of mercury poisoning as a result of the normal consumption of commercial seafood in any published peer-reviewed medical journals.

Suggesting that eating healthy seafood can backfire on consumers is not only inaccurate it is reckless and is not based on science but rather on rhetoric from an organization that openly states it does not hold [it]self out as scientific researchers and doesnt do peer reviewed science.”

While I am not certain just what the journalism standards are for a site designed to entertain the health into you, I am certain of the standard CNN uses. With this in mind we ask you to edit or remove this article from your website.

Thank you for your attention to accuracy.

Gavin Gibbons

Vice President, Communications

National Fisheries Institute

cc Ashley Hayes

Senior Producer

Health & Medicine

Did you know the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations has a most wanted fugitives list? The tradition of Most Wanted lists began with the FBI in 1950. Approved by the FBI director himself, the list has featured more than 500 fugitives, 94% of whom have been captured or located. Whether the posters are at your local post office or on line they are a powerful tool used by federal law enforcement and send a message that they are serious about these criminals.

The latest edition of the FDAs most wanted list includes Nhan Huhn Dat Nguyen. He is accused of fish fraud, that’s right, importing one fish but labeling it as another. 12 individuals or corporations have already either pleaded guilty or been convicted on charges related to this criminal conspiracy.

Putting accused fraudsters like this on the FDA’s most wanted list shows a seriousness and focus on this issue that highlights the need for more enforcement, not more laws. The more criminals see charges of fish fraud showing up the most wanted list, the more they’ll think twice about it.

April 21, 2014

Laurie McGinley

Health, Environment & Science Editor

Washington Post

Dear Ms. McGinley,

I am writing to express concern over some fundamental journalistic failings found in Daryl Fears recent article Seafood study: Up to 32 percent imported to U.S. is caught illegally. Mr. Fears article contains no reporting or even information gathering from the commercial enterprise that is the focus of the study on which he is reporting. Mr. Fears appears to have written an article about an issue that concerns the commercial seafood industry and never once contacted the commercial seafood industry.

In fact, beyond simply not reaching out to commercial seafood interests, Mr. Fears is presumptuous enough to speak for the industry; The seafood industry, which stands to lose money if it loses the publics trust, frowns on such reports. Had he contacted the industry he would have found that it does in fact frown on this report because of serious problems with the study that do no hold up to the scientific rigor he so eagerly reports on.

The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) supports and has taken action to help crackdown against pirate fishing, including supporting legislation to combat the issue. But we cannot support the validity of a study that begins by proposing that 10-20% of domestic seafood comes from Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. To independent scientists schooled in regulatory oversight and fisheries management this statistic is absurd. Yet its referenced in the first few paragraphs of the study. Nowhere does Mr. Fears challenge or even acknowledge this.

Likewise, the study suggests that nearly 100% of the salmon exported from China to the United States was of Russian origin. This is beyond mere anecdotal speculation and is just completely inaccurate. Whats more the percentage of salmon from China that is deemed IUU, appears to ignore the realistic source of as much as half of that product. Unsubstantiated speculation and anonymous, anecdotalmusings contribute to grave flaws in this study and they are never even examined by Mr. Fears.

The authors seemed to have talked to a lot of anonymous sources about the industry yet widely available, not so anonymous pricing data undercuts their own arguments. For instance, the suggestion that higher-priced Atlantic cod would be labeled as lower-priced haddock or blue whiting to hide its origin is ridiculous. It turns the economic incentive of the suggested piracy upside down. In this scenario unscrupulous fishermen would be scheming to make less money off of their catch. Again, Mr. Fears either does not realize these errors are present in the study or simply chose not to probe these incongruities.

You may remember NFI contacted you in October of 2013 about failures in Mr. Fears reporting on another seafood issue. With this pattern in mind and his clear willingness to ignore stakeholders who are willing to directly challenge aspects of the very subjects he is reporting on we ask that you review his work.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

Vice President, Communications

National Fisheries Institute

cc: Mr. Kevin Merida

Managing Editor

Washington Post

Is that true?

No. Of course its not. But why would we let facts get in the way of a good story? Rodale News doesnt. The news outlet (and I use that term generously) has published another missive railing against seafood and it starts with a huge factual inaccuracy.

I’ve got to hand it to Rodale, if you’re going to simply make up part of your narrative you might as well lead with it. In her first sentence Leah Zerbe writes, “To combat filthy conditions, the U.S. government is going to require irradiation of certain seafood favorites.”

Really Leah? The U.S. government is going to require that. Well then, that is breaking news. Except that um yeaaaa they’re not. And um yeaaaa that’s not true.

After 13 years of review the FDA has approved a petition that would allow crustaceans to be irradiated, a technology that doesn’t replace safe food handling practices but illustrates a positive step in food safety evolution.

Just like beef, chicken, pork and certain vegetables, crustaceans can now be irradiated. That’s a good thing. But, if you believe the ongoing seafood misinformation jihad propagated by Rodale, this is some type of move designed to combat filthy conditions.

It’s really too bad we can’t irradiate all future Rodale News stories, that way they would be free of Listeria, E. coli and blatant falsehoods.

In her article, Sorting Out the Risks of Fish, Roni Rabin does some sorting out alright sorting out of the vast majority of seafood science including several studies provided to her in advance of her story. She cites and misrepresents in part three studies, while ignoring larger, more recent science to support her claim that new studies [suggest] that mercury may cause subtle adverse effects at levels lower than those now considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency, even as they reaffirm the cognitive benefits to children whose mothers ate fish while pregnant. Lets take a closer look at Ms. Rabins scientific review.

Study 1:

Maternal Fish Consumption, Hair Mercury, and Infant Cognition in a U.S. Cohort (2005)

This study followed 135 pairs of mothers and infants to determine if a moms fish intake during pregnancy was associated with her babys brain development test score at six months old. Rabin gets it right that the babies scores increased four points for each additional weekly serving of fish the mother ate during pregnancy. The babies who scored the highest were those whose mothers were among the top fish and seafood consumers, but who also had lower mercury levels. But whats left out is that even mothers who ate fish and had higher mercury levels had babies who scored higher on tests than mothers who didnt eat enough fish.

Rabin acknowledges that this study only had 135 mother/child pairs, but chose to ignore two landmark studies that looked at the same general outcomes baby brain development but are newer and dramatically larger.

In a study published in 2008, researchers followed over 25,000 Danish mother/child pairs to find out how eating fish during pregnancy effects child development. Compared with women who ate the least fish, women who ate the most fish (2 ounces per day on average) had children 25% more likely to have higher developmental scores at 6 months and almost 30% more likely to have higher scores at 18 months.

In a study published in 2007, researchers followed nearly 12,000 mother/child pairs to see how diet and lifestyle are linked to health and growth during pregnancy. Mothers who ate the most seafood during pregnancy — more than 12 ounces per week — had children with the best motor, social, and communication skills. Researchers concluded advice that limits the amount of seafood moms eat during pregnancy could be detrimental to the best possible development among babies.

Why are these study summaries in quotes? Because they were sent by us to Rabin prior to publication of her article. But no, two studies of tens of thousands of participants didnt make the story. Instead, Rabin references another one-off study of less than 1,000 participants. Lets take a closer look at that one.

Study 2:

Prenatal Exposure to Mercury and Fish Consumption During Pregnancy and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity DisorderRelated Behavior in Children (2012)

Again, Rabin gets it right that pregnant women who eat seafood more than twice per week, including traces of mercury, may lower their childrens risk for ADHD-like behaviors. While the study found that exposure to certain levels of prenatal mercury may be associated with higher risk of ADHD-like behaviors, eating fish can protect against this risk. Important detail when were talking about what advice about eating fish we should give pregnant women.

Oh, and speaking of advice about eating fish for pregnant women, a couple pretty well-regarded groups have recently done just that. Again, we provided these recommendations to Ms. Rabin, and again, she chose to ignore them. Mind you, these both came out within the last five years and are based on a combined review of 140 studies and articles.

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines are pretty clear about the effect of seafood, the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks, even for pregnant women.

This report World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Joint Expert Consultation on the Risks and Benefits of Fish Consumption, September 2011 was written by a panel of 17 nutrition experts, physicians, and toxicologists who reviewed nearly 150 studies and articles and concluded that medical and nutrition gatekeepers should Emphasize the benefits of fish consumption on reducing mortality from coronary heart disease (and the risks of mortality from coronary heart disease associated with not eating fish) for the general adult population. Whats more they recommend experts, emphasize the net neurodevelopmental benefits to offspring of women of childbearing age who consume fish, particularly pregnant women and nursing mothers, and the neurodevelopmental risks to offspring of women of childbearing age who do not consume fish.

For both populations the WHO is clearly saying the danger lies in not eating fish. They are not recommending additional warnings, only warning against the detrimental effects of not eating fish.

And then theres the most unexpected study of all for the purposes of discussion about seafood advice for pregnant women.

Study 3:

Effect of Mercury Levels and Seafood Intake on Cognitive Function in Middle-aged Adults (June 2012)

This study of less than 400 adults looked at the relationship between seafood consumption and cognitive function. Adults who follow the recommendation to eat a variety of seafood twice a week had the highest cognitive function.

If Ms. Rabin wanted to talk about the effects of eating fish on adult brain health, specifically the adults targeted by FDA seafood advice, perhaps this large-scale study may have been of interest.

Depression during pregnancy is more common than post-partum depression and can negatively affect both moms and babies. Preventing depression during pregnancy is important because antidepressant use in pregnancy may not be advised. Researchers studied over 14,000 women 32 weeks in to their pregnancy to determine if low seafood intake increases depression risk. Results show pregnant mothers who ate no seafood were about 50 percent more likely to have symptoms of depression than pregnant mothers who ate the most seafood (at least three servings of fish a week). Researchers concluded the U.S. FDA/EPA advice to eat no more than 2-3 servings of fish per week during pregnancy could increase the risk of poor mental well-being among pregnant mothers.

Omitting important studies and recommendations is irresponsible; getting the audience for the current advice wrong is unacceptable. Ms. Rabin asks broadly, So, whats a health-conscious fish eater to do? and then provides the FDA guidance for the specific population of pregnant and breastfeeding women and young children. When the general population thinks they need to follow advice about seafood for pregnant women its called spillover and its not good. We told Ms. Rabin about this and how experts with the Institute of Medicine try to avoid it by carefully testing messages.

There is suggestive evidence that risk-avoidance advice for sensitive subpopulations may be construed by other groups or the general population as appropriate precautionary action for themselves. While emphasizing trade-offs may reduce the risk of spillover effects, consumer testing of messages should address the potential for spillover effects explicitly.

Heres a little message-crafting 101; identify the sub-population for whom advice is meant and stick to it.

February 26, 2014

Alex Crees
Health Editor
Fox News Online
1211 Avenue of the Americas, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10036

Dear Ms. Crees,

I am writing with some editorial concerns about an article featured on your website, The 5 fish that are most contaminatedand 5 you should eat instead. The content of the article flies in the face of nutrition recommendations from the federal government and international agencies. Misleading and out-of-context statements about fish do a fundamental disservice to Fox News readers, and specifically pregnant women.

To begin, its important to note that no seafood species is off limits for the general population, according to the U.S. Government. In fact, the USDAs 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) urge Americans to increase the amount and variety of seafood they eat. With regards to trace amounts of naturally-occurring mercury found in fish, the DGAs say, consistent evidence shows that the health benefits from consuming a variety of seafood in the amounts recommended outweigh the health risks associated with methyl mercury. Your current headline fails to explain that the recommendation referred to is only for a sub-population of pregnant women.

Specific to pregnancy, the DGAs recommend pregnant and breastfeeding women eat between 8 and 12 ounces of seafood a week, and avoid just four rarely-eaten species: shark, tilefish, king mackerel, and swordfish. The DGAs say, Omega-3 fatty acids, in particular DHA, from at least 8 ounces of seafood per week for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding is associated with improved infant health outcomes, such as visual and cognitive development.

However, in your report author Esther Crain of Womens Health disregards the vast amount of sound, peer-reviewed science encompassed in the DGAs when she writes, Its crucial that you avoid ingesting [mercury] even if theres a chance you could become a mom soon.

Throughout her recommendations Ms. Crain includes alarmist and sensational language. She notes that king mackerel is on the do-not-eat list unless you want to risk mercury poisoning. Actually, minimal research by this reporter would reveal there is not a single case of mercury poisoning due to the normal consumption of commercial seafood (like king mackerel) in any peer-reviewed published medical journal.

Its concerning to see Fox News source important nutrition recommendations from an author with no background in nutrition. Ms. Crain has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English/Journalism and has a round-up of articles like 8 Celebrity Butt Selfiesand What You Can Learn from Them and Should I Worry About Eyelash Extensions? Hardly the credentials to be advising pregnant women on vital nutrition information.

A scare-mongering article like this does a fundamental disservice to pregnant women, a group who are already deficient in seafood, consuming less than 2 ounces a week. Excluding information about the clear benefits pregnant women and their children receive from consuming 8-12 ounces of fish a week (as recommended by published federal nutrition policy) and solely focusing on the four to avoid is irresponsible and biased reporting. We ask that you remove this article from Fox News, or re-post with crucial information about the benefits of pregnant women consuming seafood.

Please let me know how you plan to address these editorial issues. I look forward to hearing from you.

Lynsee Fowler
Communications Manager
National Fisheries Institute

cc: George Kindel

Managing Editor

We recently sent a letter to the editors of Consumer Reports once again challenging their chronic habit of misreporting and manipulating the facts on seafood nutrition. Their most recent distortion comes in a direct mail piece selling their OnHealth newsletter in which the editors lazily claim that white albacore tuna is not healthy because it can be high in mercury.

Mercury from naturally occurring volcanic activity on our oceans floors is found in trace amounts in all wild-caught fish including tuna. What Consumer Reports doesnt tell you is both light and white tuna fall well within the Food and Drug Administrations threshold for safety, a standard that includes a one-thousand percent safety factor. That means a person would have to have mercury levels ten times higher than the FDAs highest threshold to be concerned. In fact Americas top ten favorite fish are all considered low mercury fish. So to state white tuna is slightly higher in mercury, therefore implying that white tuna is an unhealthy choice, provides no value to consumers looking for concrete health information about seafood and actually leads to public harm.

Its a well known fact that Americans are seafood deficient, eating a meager 15 pounds a year of seafood compared with 70+ pounds of chicken, 100+ pounds of beef and 600+ pounds of dairy.

Time and again, research has shown that lack of seafood in the diet contributes to weaker cognitive development in children and worse cardiovascular outcomes in adults. Indeed, one peer-reviewed study concluded that fish-poor diets contributed to 84,000 preventable cardiac deaths each year.

Canned tuna is a convenient, inexpensive, and widely available source of omega-3s, which organizations from the USDA to the World Health Organization agree are critical to heart and brain health.

When Consumer Reports tells readers to buy one kind of smartphone over another, or to use a particular brand of tomato sauce, it is expressing an opinion. But when it tells Americanswho are already eating too little seafoodto avoid fish it is actively contributing to an ongoing public health crisis, one with real, measurable consequences.

One would think that with the stakes so high, Consumer Reports would swear off mercury fearmongering and this cheap form of deception. Unfortunately this is merely the latest chapter in a long history of callous disregard for the health of their readers. In the past, the publication has aped the anti-tuna talking points of agenda-driven ideological activists while ignoring the overwhelming scientific consensus that those groups oppose, and conducted unscientific tests while misinterpreting or cherry-picking evidence to play on readers misplaced fears.

Unfortunately, Consumer Reports appears to have decided that sacrificing facts for fear is the best way to increase their subscriptions. In the name of profit, theyd rather scare consumers than inform them.

This isnt the first time weve suggested Dr. Oz use NFI as a resource to avoid embarrassingly out of touch segments like his latest on Fukushima and Fish:

February 12, 2014

Ms. C. Denise Beaudoin

Legal Counsel

ZoCo Productions, LLC

30 Rockefeller Plaza

43^rd Floor

New York, NY 10012

Dear Ms. Beaudoin,

The National Fisheries Institute finds Dr. Ozs most recent coverage of the aftermath from the Fukushima earthquake and subsequent nuclear accident sensational, unnecessarily alarming and a disservice to his viewers.

The fact that a cardiac surgeon and professor would choose to feature a celebrity chef with no expertise whatsoever in radiological science, or even public health, as his go-to guest on a nuclear accident is beyond disappointing and borderline malpractice.

Keep in mind Dr. Oz refers to his guest, Mario Batali, as an expert. However, never once did he feature an actual expert like Georgetown University Medical School Associate Professor and Chair of the University Radiation Safety Committee, Dr. Timothy Jorgensen. No, instead he chose a chef who agreed to pay $5.25 million in restitution after being accused of skimming money from his employees tips. Not once did he reference the work of Dr. Ken Buesseler Senior Scientists in Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Instead he relied on a TV chef who once said bankers were akin to Stalin or Hitler.

Dr. Ozs choice of a guest to explain the issue and put misinformation in a credible and composed perspective is baffling. On this subject, and others, Mr. Batalis credibility and ability to avoid unnecessary hyperbole is questionable at best.

Doctor Oz himself produces a narrative of misinformation when he suggests that irradiated seafood from Japan like shrimp, calamari, swordfish, and tuna could be causing consumers to doubl[e] down your radiation. There is no credible public health source that agrees with that assertion, not one. Perhaps a joint advisory put out by the FDA, EPA and NOAA that says, U.S. Seafood Safe and Unaffected by Radiation Contamination from Japanese Nuclear Power Plant Incident might be enough?

Batali and Oz continue their parade of seafood misinformation when they contradict the U.S. Dietary Guidelines by suggesting that people limit, rather than increase, their seafood consumption based on mercury fears. Batali branches out from his apparent expertise in nuclear physics to toxicology when he notes an elevated potential level [of mercury] in tuna. This assessment offered despite the fact that science shows mercury levels in tuna have remained unchanged over, at least, the last 100 years.

We renew our request that Dr. Oz and his staff reach out to the National Fisheries Institute for suggestions and direction to independent experts and published, peer reviewed science before producing flawed seafood segments like this latest effort. A quick trip to FukushimaFishFacts.com could have easily avoided much of the confusion propagated by this segment.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

Vice President, Communications

National Fisheries Institute