For many, Consumer Reports is synonymous with cars and electronics but when it comes to reporting on nutrition and fish its usually misreporting and manipulation. Heres their latest blunder.

February 4, 2014

Sue Byrne

Senior Editor, Health, at Consumer Reports

VIA EMAIL

Dear Ms. Byrne,

I am writing about an egregious manipulation of the facts about canned tuna in a recent direct mail piece for Consumer Reports onHealth newsletter.

Page 7 of the mailer labels a can of chunk light tuna as healthier and a can of chunk white tuna as not healthy with the explanation that light tuna tends to contain less mercury while albacore tuna can be high in mercury.

Missing from this health tip is any context about mercury and how it is both naturally occurring in all wild-caught seafood and the trace amounts in either species. Also missing is FDAs guidelines for concern and the fact tuna does not meet them. The FDA limit for mercury in seafood is 1 part per million (ppm). Canned light tuna has 0.1 ppm and canned white/albacore tuna has 0.3 ppm, each well below FDAs threshold for safety. In fact, the FDA mercury limit for seafood includes a 1,000 percent safety factor (“FDAs action level of 1 ppm for methyl mercury in fish was established to limit consumers methyl mercury exposure to levels 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects.) So there is no way to scientifically support your claim that albacore/white canned tuna is not healthy.

Also missing from your portrait of tuna is that both light and albacore tuna are important dietary sources of omega-3s with 200 mg and 700 mg omega-3s per 3 oz. serving, respectively. Simply put, a 3-oz serving goes a long way in helping American families meet their weekly seafood requirement. Not to mention, tuna is a convenient and affordable meal for many Americans. The bottom line: This health tip infers that albacore/white tuna is a food to avoid. Health tips like this actually create public harm, steering people away from a healthy food experts agree Americans are deficient in. Research shows that low omega-3/seafood consumption is the second-biggest dietary contributor to preventable death in the U.S. As important, Consumer Reports opinion goes against the mainstream of scientific consensus of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), theInstitute of Medicine(IOM) and theFood and Agriculture Organizationof the United Nations working with the World Health Organization (FAO/WHO), that a fish-rich diet is not only safe and healthy, but essential for optimum health.

We request that you remove this from your promotional mailing and any other collateral where it may be featured. When writing future stories about seafood, please make sure your advice encourages families to eat more of a variety of fish in line with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which say Increase the amount and variety of seafood consumed by choosing seafood in place of some meat and poultry. If you insist on an eat this, not that format, perhaps you should compare the amount of DHA/EPA omega-3s in tuna (light or albacore) to the levels of these omega-3s in other protein choices and give consumers valuable nutrition information they can use to make truly informed and educated food choices.

Thank you.

Gavin Gibbons

Vice President, Communications

National Fisheries Institute

January 10, 2014

Dear Ms. Harris,

I was surprised and disappointed by the section regarding fish in your article How Much Is Too Much in the January, 2014 issue ofReal Simple. While author Sarah Copeland sets out to provide health benefits for your readers, her piece on fish creates more myths than it resolves misleading your readers in several ways.

Copeland writes that all fish are at risk of being tainted with mercury, citing an anonymous group of environmentalists for the assertion.In fact, the Food and Drug Administration hasstated thatfor most people, the risk from mercury by eating fish and shellfish is not a health concern and no peer-reviewed medical journal has ever published evidence of a case of mercury poisoning caused by the normal consumption of commercial seafood in the U.S. The USDAs Dietary Guidelines for Americans urges Americans to eat at least two fish meals a week.

Copeland also states that mercury exposure is linked with neurological and reproductive health problems. What Copeland does not tell her the readers is that these problems were the result of environmental disasters more than 50 years ago that neither resemble nor are applicable to how average American families eat seafood.

Copeland also incorrectly asserts that cold-water fish are safer sources that minimize toxins, and provides no evidence to back up her assertions. The fact is that all fish are subject to the same health and safety requirements.

Finally, Copeland inaccurately states that Albacore tuna should be avoided by pregnant or breast-feeding women. In fact, the USDAs Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourages pregnant and breastfeeding women toincreasethe amount of fish they are currently eating to at least two meals per week, to support healthy brain, eye, and spinal cord development for their children.False statementslike Copelands abovereinforce the serious seafood deficiency among pregnant women who eat less than half a serving (or 2 ounces) each week. Ultimately, it is their babies brain health that is suffering.

Only four, rarely eaten fish are suggested to avoid during pregnancy, and tuna is not one of them.Mercury in ocean fish is naturally-occurring in trace amounts and is the product of underwater volcanic activity. These miniscule amounts are simply not a concern for pregnant and breastfeeding women. For pregnant women eating fish from a local stream or pond, each state has local water advisories they can check. However, most American women eat fish purchased from their grocer.

As Copeland herself points out, fish are an important part of a healthy diet and health organizations, including the American Heart Association, concur. Real Simple quite simply got the story on fish wrong, unnecessarily turning seafood choices into a mine field and adding to the confusion of women who are, according to all the data, already seafood deficient thanks in large part to stories like this. Considering the material harm this could cause your readers, I would like to request an itemized list of corrections in next months magazine, and as a service to your readers, an online story affirming that fish is a primary source of omega-3s that experts agree Americans need to eat more of, especially during pregnancy. Please let me know what resources you need to get this corrected and please reach out to us when doing seafood related stories in the future.

Sincerely,

Mary Anne Hansan
Vice President, National Fisheries Institute

December 19, 2013
The Top Information Post
Digital News Aggregation,
VIA EMAIL
Dear Managing Editor,
I am writing to address editorial concerns about the alarmist and misleading Top Info Post article, Fukushima is here: ALL Bluefin Tuna Caught In California Are Radioactive.
Author Ann Werner makes claims that fly in the face of scientists from the Food and Drug Administration to The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to Oregon State University who have all determined that fish off the West Coast of the U.S. are safe to eat.
In true If it Bleeds it Leads hyperbole, Ms. Werner starts the article saying, Every bluefin tuna tested in the waters off California has shown to be contaminated with radiation that originated in Fukushima. Every single one. What she didnt say is that this contamination is equal to one twentieth of the radiation found in a banana. A subtle, but important detail that completely changes the story.
She goes on to quote a scientist who says, We found that absolutely every one of them had comparable concentrations of cesium 134 and cesium 137. Ms. Werner forgets to add another story-changer: the findings of those levels are roughly 300 times lower than levels that would prompt FDA to investigate further to determine if there were a health concern. As the FDA noted in an email.
Ms. Werner ends the article by voicing her own concerns about the FDA, The FDA assures us that our food supply is safeBut one has to question if this is true Seeing as Ms. Werners resume includes Wine consultant and Formerly on Days of Our Lives I am going to retain my trust in the PhDs at the FDA.
Alluding to the idea that consumers will be sickened by eating seafood from the Pacific is inaccurate and irresponsible to your readers. An alarmist and misleading article like this has the potential of scaring people away from seafood a food theyre already deficient in. Science shows low seafood consumption is the second-biggest dietary contributor to preventable deaths in the U.S., taking 84,000 lives each year (for perspective, low intake of fruits and vegetables takes 58,000 lives each year).
We ask that you remove this article from your website or re-write it to include important details that tell the whole story of Fukushima and West Coast fish.
Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Lynsee Fowler

Communications Coordinator
National Fisheries Institute

It hasnt been a good run for the venerable news magazine 60 Minutes lately. You may have seen recently where a high profile correspondent and her producer were put on leave after botching an equally high profile story. And then of course theres the journalistic train wreck that famously cost Dan Rather and four others their jobs, also a 60 Minutes report.

Al Ortiz, executive director of standards and practices at CBS News, must be burning the midnight oil these days crossing ts and dotting is, as well he should. But it would appear the BC Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) has already crossed quite a few ts and dotted quite a few is for Mr. Ortiz and company for an upcoming story about salmon. The group has posted a narrative of its interaction with 60 Minutes and the supplemental documentation they provided the news outlet on its website www.salmonfarmers.org.

Its a fascinating and thorough 19 page look at what producers at 60 Minutes know before they produce this upcoming story. It will be interesting to see what the final product looks like. And with these, now public, resources Mr. Ortiz and his team at 60 Minutes can believe well be watching closely.

November 20, 2013

Phat Chiem
Deputy Editor
Yahoo! News

Dear Mr. Chiem,

Thank you for your commitment to accuracy and balance in removing the article titled 5 Reasons To Never Eat Shrimp Again. As I mentioned in my initial outreach authors Leah Zerbe and Emily Main from Rodale have a long history of skewed reporting when it comes to seafood. In addition to their current shrimp reporting here’s a snap shot of some of their other recent work: Here are 12 Fish You Should Never, Ever Eat, 4 dirty secrets of the seafood industry, 3 Surprisingly Unhealthy Seafood Picks and The Biggest Problem with U.S. Fish. Notice a pattern?

Their latest article is a quintessential example of a failure to abide by the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics which insists reporters make certain that [stories] do not misrepresent and test the accuracy of information from all sources and distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. They wrote an entire article based on one source and failed, either out of ignorance or agenda, to challenge, further research or contextualize any of his claims.

They begin by reporting that, shrimp is one of the most — if not the most — damaging fisheries around. This hyperbole is beyond a generalization. It’s an absurdity that is akin to a Yahoo! automotive writer beginning a report by saying all midsized cars are bad.

The report then launches a distorted attack on the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) food safety system by, as I mentioned, distorting the explanation of how seafood is regulated.

To report that only 2% of all imported seafood is tested by the Food and Drug Administration without explaining FDA’s internationally recognized Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system is a clear misrepresentation. The risk-based system addresses challenges all along the supply chain at multiple control points before they become a problem at the dock where the reporters suggest the product should be tested. Failing to explain to readers that the HACCP model refers to the prevention of hazards during production rather than simply inspecting for them in the finished product is clear distortion.

Their insistence that shrimp farms are breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses is challenged but unreported by the fact that imported seafood makes up only 0.12% of reported illnesses from food according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC found of the more than 120,000 food borne illnesses reported from 2005-2010, less than 2% are attributable to imported food. And of that number, just 0.12% of the reported illnesses from food were attributable to seafood.

More deception by omission comes as the report notes that over the past 50 years, anywhere from 5 to 80% of the mangrove forests in Thailand, Ecuador, Indonesia, China, Mexico, and Vietnam have been destroyed to make room for more coastal shrimp farms. This narrative totally distorts the current state of affairs with regard to mangroves and shrimp farming. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization reports current mangrove loss is minimal and between 1990 and 2000 was down around 1%. Meanwhile, the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification program includes standards that expressly forbid pond construction on mangroves. Instead of reporting these facts, they report, shrimp farming contributes to global warming. It makes me wonder if Rodale’s most up to date reporting on global affairs might indicate that the U.S. is still at war with Vietnam?

Reporting on by catch the article notes that, nets routinely pull up 9,000 endangered or threatened sea turtles annually. Assuming their readers will not research this part of the storyline they omit the fact that it is illegal to import wild caught shrimp harvested without the use of a turtle excluder device. The U.S. and American consumers are at the forefront of efforts to protect turtles not harm them.

We ask that you reconsider Rodale News as a content provider for your site. Its reporting not only reflects badly on Yahoo! but does a disservice to your readers.

Please let me know how you plan to address these editorial issues.

Gavin Gibbons
National Fisheries Institute

November 19, 2013
Ryan Wallace
Senior Editor
Yahoo! Health

Dear Mr. Wallace,

I am writing to express concern over an article featured on your website titled 5 Reasons To Never Eat Shrimp Again. The article contains misleading statements about shrimp that does a fundamental disservice to Yahoo! Health readers. The author, Leah Zerbe, has been challenged in the past for writing inflammatory and skewed articles about seafood in the past that push a hidden agenda.

To begin, Ms. Zerbes article references advice from Andrew Sharpless, CEO of Oceana a self-described oceanic conservation organization, not a nutritional group. We would hope Yahoo! Health would source from doctors, dietitians, or nutrition experts and not eco-activists when it publishes an article advising readers to give up an entire food group.

Ms. Zerbe claims, Shrimp farms are breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses. Nice rhetoric, but the reality is that imported seafood makes up just 0.12% of reported illnesses from food according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC found of the more than 120,000 illnesses reported from 2005-2010, less than 2% are attributable to imported food. And of that number, just 0.12% of the report illnesses from food were attributable to seafood.

Ms. Zerbe goes on to claim that Only 2% of all imported seafood is tested by the Food and Drug Administration. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of FDAs regulatory system for seafood. FDAs Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) is an internationally recognized risk-based system that seeks to solve challenges along the supply chain at multiple control points before they become a problem at the dock. The HACCP model refers to the prevention of hazards during production rather than simply inspection for them in the finished product. Ms. Zerbe misleads readers into thinking no seafood is unregulated until it reaches U.S. borders.

An article advising Yahoo! Health readers to never eat shrimp again is irresponsible and unwarranted. Americans are already deficient in seafood, and whats worse science shows low seafood consumption is the second-biggest dietary contributor to preventable deaths in the U.S., taking 84,000 lives each year (for perspective, low intake of fruits and vegetables takes 58,000 lives each year).

The USDAs 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) urge the general population to increase the amount and variety of seafood consumed by choosing seafood in place of some meat and poultry. The DGAs recommend that 20% of the total intake of protein foods comes from a variety of seafood. This includes shrimp.

We ask that you remove this article from your website and rethink pushing Rodale News agenda by syndicating their outdated, misleading, and out-of-context reports.

Please let me know how you plan to address these editorial issues.

Gavin Gibbons
National Fisheries Institute

cc: Phat Chiem
Deputy Editor

If you read MSN this morning while drinking your coffee you might have seen this little piece of muck racking, 4 dirty secrets of the seafood industry. Its got a healthy dose of hyperbole in the title so it must be good, right? And the reporter must be an independent, top-shelf journalist devoted to exposing the truth, right?

Well, in the immortal words of Paul Harvey heres the rest of the story.

The reporter who penned this piece is Emily Main who writes for Rodale, an outlet with a history of publishing slanted, inaccurate pieces that slam seafood. In January it ran an article titled 3 Surprisingly Unhealthy Seafood Picks that included fundamental inaccuracies. We reached out to offer resources to Rodale and help correct those errors but no changes were made. Then in April the team was back at it, this time featuring a report titled The Biggest Problem with U.S. Fish. More misleading scaremongering and no correction or willingness to address our concerns. Then today its exposing dirty secrets, a narrative that relies on agenda-driven activists to weave a distortion filled narrative that features zero balance.

Emily and her crew should probably spend more time reading The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) code of ethics rather than anti-seafood handouts. On SPJs site they would find an admonition to, make certain that [reports] do not misrepresent and test the accuracy of information from all sources and distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.

Instead of picking apart this latest bit of rhetoric, masquerading as journalism, well pledge that rather than waste time and energy reaching out to Rodale, to help them find their way to accuracy and balance in seafood reporting, well just use this space to point out their almost comically slanted reporting in the future.

And as Rodale marginalizes itself as a source for aggregators like MSN well remain a resource for all the other outlets who take accuracy seriously.

October 16, 2013

Laurie McGinley

Health Editor

Cameron Barr

National Editor

The Washington Post

Dear Ms. McGinley and Mr. Barr,

An article by Darryl Fears this week, Study links warmer water temperatures to greater levels of mercury in fish misleads readers in several ways.

At the top Fearssuggests that consumers can expect dire consequences from eating canned tuna because tuna are feasting on mercury contaminated killifish at the bottom of the food chain.as a result of killifish absorbing higher levels of methylmercury in an era of global warming. But thats demonstrably false. The albacore and skipjack in canned tuna do not feed on killifish.

Moreover, the vast majority of the methylmercury found in tuna and any deep water ocean fish is naturally-occurring from volcanic activity, not the manmade sources to which you allude. In fact, precisely because methylmercury is predominately naturally occurring, the mercury levels in fish have remained stable for decades, rather than increasing with industrial production, as Fears implies.

Worse still, Fears then presents a parade of illnesses apparently linked to eating fish. But that too is deceptive because those are simply not associated with the normal consumption of commercial seafood. Certainly not among Americans (who leading nutritionists say aren’t eating enough seafood), or among populations like Japan’s, which consumes far more. In fact, there has never been a single confirmed case of mercury poisoning linked to normal seafood consumption in the United States in any published, peer-reviewed medical literature. Dont readers deserve to know that no harm has actually occurred, especially in a piece that otherwise indulges so much speculation?

In fact, the USDA is very clear in its dietary guidelines that Americans arent eating enough seafood of any kind for heart and brain health, and recommend increase[ing] the amount and variety of seafood consumed to at least 8 or more ounces per week, or 2 meals a week, for improving heart health and baby brain and eye development.

We welcome a conversation about the future of our planet, but not at the expense of misinforming that stands to frighten ordinary Americans away from safe, healthy foods. We ask that you issue a correction and to please reach out to us in future matters.

Gavin Gibbons

Director of Media Relations

National Fisheries Institute

During the Government Shutdown theres been a lot of reporting about food safety. When it comes to seafood, not all of that reporting has been accurate.

The old saying If It Bleeds It Leads is designed to be pejorative, yet accurate in its illustration of how pathetic some reporters and bloggers can be in search of the sensational. Oh and I know, believe you me, the speed of the digital age and the shrinking attentions spans of Americans is to blame for the skyrocketing rates of media hyperbole. You are so right– for some reason Americans no longer wait until they come home in the evening, change into a cardigan sweater, put on a pair of slippers and light up a pipe before reading their print-edition newspaper from cover to cover. Damn them. How dare they?

Lets take a cross section of the latest Fukushima reporting and see if we can spot where the hyperbole becomes just down right fiction writing. I wont list all the reporters whove embarrass themselves by alluding to the idea that consumers will be sicken by eating seafood from the Pacific, despite the fact that theyre well aware you are exposed to more radiation from a garden variety banana than from said fish. No, those I will not call out.

This one I will: On the site LiberalsUnite they examine the dangers of the Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Caught Off California Coast and find Marine biologist Nicholas Fisher at Stony Brook University in New York State, talking about Bluefin tuna; We found that absolutely every one of them had comparable concentrations of cesium 134 and cesium 137. Well, that sounds alarming. Any sentence that mentions two, count em two, different esiums must be sounding an alarm of some sortright?

Lets have a look at TakeParts write up titled, In the Aftermath of Radiation, Is Fish From the Pacific Ocean Safe to Eat? It would appear they too found Marine biologist Nicholas Fishers work and quoted him as well. Heres a sample of what they excerpted, Radioactivity in the fish that arrive in North American is detectible, but just barely. No measurements weve made are a public health concern. If we found scary-high levels [of radioactivity] we would report them to authorities, but were nowhere near that.

What? Barely detectable not a public health concern. How dare they stray from the bleeding model?

To avoid radioactive reporting like this we suggest letting the facts lead.