Some media outlets got it right. They looked at the Nature Geoscience, August 2013 study titled Mercury isotope evidence for methylation below the mixed layer in the central North Pacific Ocean and reported that scientists had pinpoint the source of some mercury found in some fish. Period.

Other reporters did what other reporters do; extrapolate without actually reading the study. Thankfully we did read the study and can provide the following actualities to help those for whom facts, not sound-bite-science, are the basis of reporting.

This study did not compare current mercury levels in fish to past mercury levels in fish and there was no data showing that mercury levels in fish are higher or lower than they used to be.

This study did not look at the health effects of seafood or mercury.

Conclusions that fall outside those truths are not based in science and are simply speculation.

Emily Osters new book, Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong-and What You Really Need to Know, has been getting attention for taking on some of the conventional wisdom about what women should do while pregnant. Oster tackles a wide range of controversial topics using her training as an economist to review available data, weigh competing risks, and make informed decisions. But while Oster makes admirable efforts to use scientific data to back up her recommendations, she ironically ends up supporting one of the biggest pregnancy myths of them all: that tuna should not be consumed by expecting mothers.

A recent write-up of the book by Max Nisen at Business Insider highlights this inconsistency in her argument. Nisen writes:

High mercury fish are bad, but many others are not only low in mercury, but high in beneficial omega-3s, which can boost IQ. The effect holds to the point where people that eat tons of fish have smarter kids on average, despite more mercury exposure. Avoiding it all together is a particularly poor outcome.

But immediately after Nisen reports Osters recommendations, he says Oster also recommends pregnant women skip canned tuna.

Thats quite the contradiction.

Eating fish is a net positive for health and comes recommended by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. A panel of 13 nutrition experts and physicians reviewed 46 seafood studies and found moms-to-be should eat at least 8 and up to 12 ounces 2-3 servings of seafood per week during pregnancy to boost their babys brain and eye development. In fact, the Dietary Guidelines say that only four species of fish should be avoided by pregnant women altogether: shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish. Canned light tuna is specifically mentioned as a fish that is low in mercury.

The recommendation to eat more fish is even more important when you realize that the average pregnant woman in the U.S. eats less than 2 ounces of seafood total in a week.

In the introduction to her book Oster writes, When I was pregnant, I pretty quickly learned that there is a lot of information out there about pregnancy, and a lot of recommendations. But neither the information nor the recommendations were all good. The information was of varying quality, and the recommendations were often contradictory and occasionally infuriating.

Unfortunately, much the same could be said about Osters recommendation on fish. By siding with propagandists and fearmongers, and recommending that pregnant women avoid tuna, Oster is advocating contradictory and even infuriating advice. Instead of using her training to get out the facts, she has in part actually bought into the mercury myth.

August 9, 2013

Kingsley Smith
Vice President
News Director
My Fox LA
KTTV-TV

Dear Mr. Smith,

I am writing to express serious concerns over an interview that aired on your station yesterday. Billed as a discussion centered on new research from UC Riverside your anchor talked with Dr. Kelly Huffman about her prenatal nutrition survey.

It would appear your anchor and or producers did little if any research about the study and offered no substantive questions about many of the problems found in this research. Likewise, they failed to research and or question the nutrition qualifications of the guest.

For starters, as discussed, the study suggests pregnant women not eat salmon specifically to avoid PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls.) All fish, not just salmon, make up a total of 9% of the PCBs found in the American diet. While vegetables account for 20% of the PCBs. Is Dr. Huffman suggesting that pregnant women also not eat vegetables?

This type of fundamental contradiction found in this study was neither addressed nor acknowledged on the air by your staff. This type of overt journalistic failure calls into question the thoroughness with which they researched this topic.

Dr. Kelly Huffman herself suggests pregnant women avoid canned tuna because of its mercury levels and instead suggest women try Halibut. According to the FDA Halibut contains 0.241 ppm of mercury, while the most popular canned tuna contains 0.128 ppm, yet another almost nonsensical contradiction. Whats more, the USDA Dietary Guidelines (Federal Nutrition Policy) states, the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks, even for pregnant women.

I am sure these types of errors, both in the research itself and in the formulation of the segment are as much a concern to you as they are to me. I appreciated your attention to this matter. Please let me know how you plan to address this situation and or if I can provide you with any resources.

Gavin Gibbons
National Fisheries Institute

cc: Kevin Hale
VP, General Manager

Ramona Schindelheim
Managing Editor

Josh Kaplan
Senior Executive Producer

Who do you want giving you nutrition advice when youre pregnant, doctors and dietitians or a psychology student? If you trust a new study that eclipses the negligent rating and catapults itself into ranks of the straight-up-wacky, youd pick the psychology student.

The study is published in the little-known Nutrition Journal, not to be confused with the venerable Journal of Nutrition. A distinction most aptly illustrated with an eighties sports car reference that would compare a Fiero and a Ferrari.

The study, titled Consumption habits of pregnant women and implications for developmental biology: a survey of predominantly Hispanic women in California, contains numerous recommendations that fly in the face of the most up-to-date nutrition science.

The entire study loses any credibility out the gate when the authors had to categorize foods into healthy or unhealthy. Lets see here, healthy, fresh fruit. OK. Unhealthy, sugary desserts. Im following. Healthy, milk. Sounds good. Unhealthy, tuna and salmon. Ummmm. Why? Well, we took a look at the studies the authors cite to justify categorizing these lean sources of protein and brain-nourishing omega-3s as unhealthy eating habits and heres what we found. They are, on average, at least a dozen years old and not a single one looks at the net effect of eating fish during pregnancy on babies. The most recent citation, from 2011, is not from a published study at all, but from the consumer buyers guide, Consumer Reportsalso a terrific reference for buying stereo equipment and computer printers.

At one point the authors point to the dangers of salmon for pregnant women because it contains polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). What the psychology students failed to note is that the highest contributors of PCBs and dioxins to the American diet are beef, chicken, and pork (34% of total); dairy products (30%); and vegetables (22%). All fish and shellfish contribute 9%. I guess based on this logic, pregnant women should stop eating vegetables.

While the authors categorize tuna and salmon as unhealthy eating habits, here are a couple groups that dont:

United States Department of Agriculture and United States Department of Health and Human Services 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, January 2011

• A panel of 13 nutrition experts and physicians reviewed 46 studies to reach the conclusion that intake of 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. Therefore, it is recommended that women who are pregnant or breastfeeding consume at least 8 and up to 12 ounces of a variety of seafood per week Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding can eat all types of tuna, including white (albacore) and light canned tuna, but should limit white tuna to 6 ounces per week because it is higher in methyl mercury Obstetricians and pediatricians should provide guidance to women who are pregnant or breastfeeding to help them make healthy food choices that include seafood.

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

• A panel of 17 nutrition experts, physicians, and toxicologists reviewed nearly 150 studies and articles to reach the conclusion that experts should 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.

Oddly (or not, based on their opinions about fish) the researchers consider tap water and all canned foods unhealthy. Looks like a canned salmon sandwich with a glass of water is pretty much the kiss of death.

Dont get us wrong, this is a study worth reporting on. But the story is not that 25% of pregnant women eat salmon. The story is that studies like this that have the true potential to confuse and harm moms-to-be are a). allowed to be crafted by psychology students and b). get published in a nutrition journal.

After receiving a computer generated brush off from the New York Times ombudsman, who was apparently too busy writing about Sesame Street, Leonard Cohen, the 7-minute workout, Kanye West, and barbershops in Africa.We decided to take our concerns about Mark Bittmans writing on seafood to Mark Bittman.

Dear Mr. Bittman:

Since you are someone who has argued for transparency and integrity in the coverage of food issues, I’d like to put a few questions to you about your June 11 piecequestioning the safety of tuna. We had a number of concerns with that article that have not been addressed by your ombudsman, you can find those full detailshere.

— Did your primary source, Dominique Browning, ever disclose to you that she works for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) or that EDF pays for and operates the Moms Clean Air Force? If she did, then why wasn’t that pointed out to readers? Your editor told us that readers should do that research on their own although I doubt many readers would agree.

— Do you realize that EDF is actively lobbying on the very regulatory issue that you advocated for in your piece and that your view matches theirs? Are you aware that EDF is now using your piece as part of its advocacy outreach as well as its fundraising?

— Are you aware of the Harvard study showing that low seafood/omega-3 intake is the second-largest dietary cause of preventable death — resulting in some 84,000 deaths annually? That’s important because when people are discouraged from eating fish, as your article urges, that public health problem only worsens.

— In the research for your piece, did you look in to what the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans have to say about eating fish? A panel of 13 nutrition experts and physicians reviewed 46 studies to reach the conclusion that people, especially women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, should eat seafood twice a week.

— Did any of the sources you spoke with point out that there’s not a single case in published peer-reviewed medical literature of anyone in this country suffering mercury toxicity from the normal consumption of commercial seafood?

— Are you aware that a joint report from the Food & Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization that is based on nearly 150 studies and articles warns people that not eating enough fish is a risk to heart health among adults and brain development in babies? And a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association found that Avoidance of modest fish consumption due to confusion regarding risks and benefits could result in thousands of excess CHD deaths annually and suboptimal neurodevelopment in children.

I would be grateful for your feedback on these points. And as the leading seafood trade association, we would of course be glad to speak with you in advance of any piece you may compose in the future about seafood safety. I only wish we could have had that opportunity this time around.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

When Philly.com asked how much tuna kids should eat we took a close look at their reporting and found it… lacking. Here’s a letter to their editors and watch this space for any response.

June 24, 2013

Karl Stark

Assistant Managing Editor

Business, Health and Science coverage

Philly.com

Dear Mr. Stark,

Todays GreenSpace column by Sandy Bauers (How much tuna should kids eat?) fails the most basic standards of journalism. It contains misleading, dangerous advice based on pseudo-science propagated by activists.

Specifically:

Ms. Bauer presented a primary source in her column, Adam Finkel, as an unbiased observer. As Ms. Bauer portrayed it, Mr. Finkel is a father and scholar who became concerned about how much tuna children are eating based on two recent reports.

At least one of these reports was generated by the Mercury Policy Project (MPP), a well-known activist organization. Yet Ms. Bauer failed to disclose Mr. Finkels connection to the Mercury Policy Project that dates back at least three years.

Mr. Finkel joined other activists in signing two letters lobbying the federal government on mercury in seafood. I found the letters one signed in 2010 and the other in 2013 — on the Mercury Police Project website using a quick Google search.

Why was this important, and easily found, connection not disclosed to readers?

Ms. Bauer also did not provide any background on the Mercury Policy Project, a group she describes innocuously as a Vermont nonprofit. In fact, MPP is an agenda-driven activist group with a notorious history of promoting hysteria that is utterly at odds with the whole of the medical and science establishment. I provided Ms. Bauer with information about the Mercury Policy Project, but she apparently ignored it.

Ms. Bauer also gave considerable import to a report written for MPP by Edward Groth, an activist turned consultant. Heres what I told Ms. Bauer in an email prior to her columns publication:

Reports like the one from MPP do far more harm than good for Americas children. Their study was not peer reviewed, not published and was based on what can only be described as a new low in quasi science. The lead author relied on what he heard was served at the school of a friends grandson in New Jersey. MPP did zero research into the actual frequency of tuna being served in school lunches. None. How can you do an exposure study if you dont research how often a subject is exposed?

I also provided a link to an article detailing the problems with the study.

None of this was mentioned in Ms. Bauers column.

As I mentioned, I sent Ms. Bauer a lengthy email with a statement and spoke to her on the phone. Heres a portion of what she declined to use:

The idea that children should eat fewer tuna sandwiches is embarrassingly out of step with what actual nutrition experts say (World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)Harvard School of Public Health, the Institute of Medicine (IOM).)

Hyperbole rather than honest perspective often colors these types of narratives. Lets put it in perspectivepeople in Japan eat 10 times as much seafood, including tuna, as Americans. Yet there is no epidemic of mercury poisoning there. In fact on many leaves the population, including school children, is measurably healthier than ours.

Please feel free to use anything you find in these resource links as on the record comments:

https://absprod.wpengine.com/press/media-blog/mercury-policy-project-continues-its-track-record-doing-more-harm-good

https://absprod.wpengine.com/press/media-blog/mercury-policy-project-reveals-new-low-quasi-science

https://absprod.wpengine.com/content/mercury-policy-project

Instead Ms. Bauer relied on activist misinformation. The result was an article thats heavy on dangerous hyperbole and light on important facts.

Ms. Bauer wrote: Mercury is emitted by coal-fired power plants and other industries. It gets into waterways, then into fish, accumulating as it moves up the food chain to top predators such as tuna.

In fact, mercury in the ocean, where commercial seafood comes from, is by and large naturally occurring. Trace amounts of mercury have always been in every fish since the beginning of time because it is naturally occurring in our oceans, mainly from underwater volcanoes and mineral deposits. In fact, methylmercury levels in commercial seafood are nearly identical to levels recorded over the last 100 years.

Ms. Bauer wrote: Mercury can harm memory, intelligence, and hand-eye coordination, so federal guidelines advise limited consumption for young children and women who are or may become pregnant.

Yet Ms. Bauer failed to mention that there are no cases of mercury poisoning from the normal consumption of commercial seafood in any peer-reviewed medical journal in this country.

Heres something else Ms. Bauer ignored: Research shows that children of women who ate the most Omega-3-rich fish while pregnant score the highest on intelligence and motor-skills tests. A study from the National Institutes of Health found children whose mothers eat no fish during pregnancy are nearly a third more likely to have abnormally low IQs. Yet another study found a link between prenatal mercury exposure and improved intelligence at age 17 — likely because traces of mercury in a pregnant womans blood showed she was eating a diet rich in fish.

Ms. Bauer wrote: Finkel considers tuna a needless risk and says the smaller the child, the less tuna he or she should eat. Groth’s report recommends that children weighing less than 55 pounds eat tuna no more than once a month.

Even in schools where tuna is served sparingly, the problem is the unusual kid who loves it and eats it at every opportunity, Groth and Finkel say.

In fact, no U.S. government study has ever found unsafe levels of mercury in children who eat canned tuna.

According to testing conducted by FDA, canned light tuna has an average of 0.12 parts per million (ppm) of methylmercury per can. Canned albacore tuna has an average of 0.35 ppm. To put these amounts into perspective, FDA has set a limit of 1.00 ppm for mercury in fish and that limit has a tenfold safety factor. That means a person would have to eat 10 times more fish than the current safety threshold every day for the rest of his life to reach a level associated with any known risk.

Ms. Bauer had a chance to educate her readers by focusing on the benefits of seafood how its rich in nutrients including protein, vitamin D and Omega 3 fatty acids that are essential to healthy development in children. Instead, she scared parents away from it. (Just imagine parents reaction reading the columns subhead: Studies underscore health risks for children consuming the mercury-tainted fish at school.) And that will only hurt children the very people Ms. Bauer is apparently trying to help.

As noted by a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “avoidance of modest fish consumption due to confusion regarding risks and benefits could result in thousands of excess coronary heart disease deaths annually and suboptimal neurodevelopment in children.”

Please explain how this column was published with so many glaring problems and please explain how you plan to set the record straight, as well as what steps you will take to ensure similar misinformation is not published again. Your readers deserve better.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

cc David Sullivan

Assistant Managing Editor

Each year Greenpeace puts out a ranking of various grocery retailers, listed according to how much the retailers comply with the multinational activist group’s demands on seafood sourcing. It’s easy to mistake the yearly ranking as a publicity stunt. After all, the ranking is trumpeted with a press release from Greenpeace headquarters, presumably sent to news outlets far and wide, and it is touted on social media by Greenpeace’s senior personnel.

Indeed the threat of negative publicity is the leverage that Greenpeace uses in order to strong-arm the retailers into filling out Greenpeace’s survey. The implied warning, Cooperate with us or we will hurt your company and brand by denouncing you in the press.

It’s a clever if crude sort of shakedown but on closer inspection it’s missing a crucial element: the ranking doesn’t actually get any significant press attention at all. In the two weeks since this year’s ranking was released, it has been covered by zero newspapers (regional or national), zero broadcast channels (regional, national, or cable), zero columnists, zero magazines, and zero radio outlets (national, regional, or even basement podcast). Even Greenpeace’s own social media — that is, it’s own actual membership — have shared or retweeted the big news only a couple dozen times in the first day or two and then stopped. Much the same thing happened with last year’s report.

It isn’t hard to understand why. For one thing, the ranking report is completely arbitrary. Greenpeace doesn’t disclose its analytics (which is made up to begin with) and so there’s no way to verify or validate how or why any retailer goes up or down on the list. Second, the underlying survey that Greenpeace claims is the basis for the ranking is also arbitrary — mostly ginned up with unscientific questions that have more to do with Greenpeace’s own agenda rather than widely accepted standards and norms of international seafood sustainability. It’s worth noting that Greenpeace has refused to collaborate with any of the governing bodies that oversee and regulate global seafood sustainability policy — and they have open contempt for the standards that are not their own, established by those concerted efforts by governments, scientists, researchers, and industry.

Even at first glance, the report is cartoonish — literally. The logos of the various grocers are rendered in charts as caricatured illustrations racing through an imaginary ocean world of talking and smiling sea creatures. No wonder serious journalists ignore it.

But it’s critical to understand that the report’s main function really isn’t to inform the press. It’s actually more of an annual report that Greenpeace uses to show its major donors that it is trying to get a stranglehold on seafood retailers and their business decisions. The most prominent features of the report describe detailed examples of how Greenpeace has been able to interact and sometimes manipulate companies into various conciliations.

But even those sorts of concessions don’t shield grocers from Greenpeace’s attacks. Just ask the companies that gave in to Greenpeace demands this year and were nevertheless ridiculed for decisions they made about seafood offerings, sourcing methods, store signage, even about executive personnel shifts.

So here’s what we know. Any hope of positive publicity from cooperating with Greenpeace or filling out their survey is an illusion. They will continue to attack retailers regardless of past concessions to achieve their ever changing agenda fluctuating like a roller coaster. Similarly, the fear of negative publicity is also unfounded. The report gets virtually no public attention and is apparently read only by a handful of Greenpeace staffers and, of course, their foundation donors.

The only practical and tangible result of the survey and ranking is for Greenpeace to justify its budget in front of the foundations that give it huge grants. By filling out the survey, retailers are in effect helping Greenpeace create the information needed to garner more funding to attack those same retailers.

An obvious question arises: why take part in the Greenpeace survey in the first place?

In case you saw yesterdays Opinionator blog and thought it warranted some questions to the New York Times, we did too. More and more we see columnists hiding behind opinion when they spout spoon-fed activist rhetoric and in this case we thought wed bring just such an occurrence to the Times attention.

Dear Ms. Hall:

Apieceby Mark Bittman in the Opinionator blog, in part attacking the safety of eating tuna, deceives readers in several key respects and it appears he unethically colluded with a lobbying organization that is leveraging policies at issue in the article.

Here are the specifics:

The most prominent source in Mr. Bittman’s piece, Dominique Browning, is described innocuously as “a journalist and a mother” who, according to Mr. Bittman, founded a group called “Moms Clean Air Force.” Ms. Browning is quoted saying she’s “neither an environmentalist or an activist” and merely someone “who could no longer ignore important issues.”

But the truth is that Moms Clean Air Force is actually part of the Environmental Defense Fund which bankrolls and organizes that group. EDF of course is a multi-national activist organization with an operating budget that exceeds $100 million annually and raised more than $112 million last year alone. In its own annual report, the head of EDF’s lobbying armspecifically creditstheir Moms Clean Air Force initiative as one of the primary tools of lobbying leverage that EDF uses to influence legislators.

Indeed, Ms. Browning and EDF are nowrepurposingMr. Bittman’s piece to solicit further donations, enlist new members, and as part of direct outreach to public officials — highlighting it in several online platforms and direct mail. Mr. Bittman is thanked effusively by name in some of that communication, where EDF says it is “thrilled” someone so “esteemed” is “writing about our campaign.” Ms. Browning’s bio alsoindicatesshe is a regular contributor to the Times itself, another corrupting fact withheld from readers.

Why was the easily-verified connection with EDF hidden from readers and how do Times editors justify presenting Ms. Browning as a grassroots advocate when in reality she is being paid to take part in a multi-million dollar lobbying effort?

Mr. Bittman also misleads readers about the underlying science in the piece. In the first paragraph, for instance, he asserts that tuna contains “unsafe levels of mercury and that childbirth-age women and nursing mothersare warned off these fish.” But the FDA guidance that he cites in the hyperlink says no such thing. In fact,the FDA urges two servings per week of fish including tuna during pregnancy. Nowhere, ever, has the FDA warned women not to eat tuna. Quite the contrary, the FDA has repeatedly advised that Americans are not eatingenoughfish in their daily diet.

One critical reason the FDA is so concerned about the under-consumption of fish is the prevailing research from leading medical authorities showing that low seafood/Omega-3 intake is nearly the largest dietary cause of preventable death — resulting in some 84,000 deaths annually. Authorities includingU.S. National Institutes of Health,Harvard Medical School,Harvard University School of Public Health,the Journal of Pediatrics, theJournal of the American Medical Associationand theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutritionhaveall advocated that the benefits of seafood vastly outweigh any theoretical risk. Yet Mr. Bittman ignores that well-known research, insisting instead that the EPA regulations that he and his lobbying sources prefer are the best way to save lives.

Similarly misleading is Mr. Bittman’s citation that “200,000 babies are born in the United States each year with mercury levels high enough to cause concerns from lower I.Q. to reduced hearing, seeing and speech to impaired mobility and more.” That statistic is based on a manufactured estimate by a former EPA official — a statistic that wasdisavowed even by the agency itself. What’s more, there’s not a single case in the whole of peer-reviewed, published medical literature of anyone in this country suffering mercury toxicity from the normal consumption of commercial seafood. But federal agencies and the same medical authorities cited above have warned repeatedly that pre- and post-natal babies are at risk oflowercognitive outcomes if their Omega-3/seafood intake is curtailed. So, Mr. Bittman’s theoreticl statistic is utterly at odds with the actual, contrary risks that are observable in the real world.

We would have been glad to explain all of this to Mr. Bittman prior to publication but he never reached out to us — or any source that wasn’t part of an eco-activist group. What’s surprising is that the last time the Times peddled these kinds of alarmist falsehoods about tuna, the story required a lengthy correction, was rebuked by the Public Editor, and was dismantled by a host of independent media critics. As the supervising editor of that piece, James Gorman, admitted in the public editor’s column, “I should have raised more questions about the general presentation.”

If you could provide some explanation for why Mr. Bittman’s piece also lacked any oversight, we would appreciate it. In particular I would welcome any suggestions on how you might set the record straight in print and, especially, what steps the Times can take to prevent this kind of dangerous and agenda-driven misinformation on tuna from occurring in print in the future.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

CC:

Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor

James Gorman, Science Editor

Sue Edgerley, Dining Editor

Trish Hall, op-ed editor

John Haskins, managing editor, New York Times Magazine

With speculation growing about Beyonce is she pregnant or not? fans spotted a possible hint on her Tumblr page: Her dinner menu in France included Salad Nicoise, a popular salad topped with tuna.

A few celebrity bloggers seized on the clue and immediately predicted that Beyonce was NOT pregnant because her photo zoomed in on tuna, a food that pregnant women used to think should be limited during pregnancy. Joyce Chen at Us Weekly began the brouhaha, which gained even more traction when JustJared re-posted it.

Too bad these gossip bloggers know nothing about pregnancy diets. And thank goodness they arent doctors, never mind Sherlock Holmes types. Because if they actually knew something about what pregnant women need to be eating, they would understand that fish, including tuna, is actually one of the most important foods women need to eat more of because 50% of a babys brain is made up of essential fatty acids found in seafood.

If Beyonce is pregnant, she is likely seeing top-notch doctors who would advise her, based on U.S. and international government guidelines and research, to eat more seafood including tuna because of the essential nutrients in fish so important to babies brain and eye development. Of course, seafood is also indispensable for expecting and breastfeeding moms because it lowers the risk of heart disease, the number one cause of death for American women.

We cant say for sure whether Beyonce is pregnant. But what is absolutely certain is that if youre an expectant mom, you can definitely have Salad Nicoise for dinner. Bon apptit!

Not two months had passed since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) soundly rejected mercury alarmists flimsy data and alarmist rhetoric for more restrictive commercial seafood regulations when they resumed spreading false and dangerous rhetoric.

With their credibility and influence seemingly crumbling, the whos who of scaremongering environmental groups Mercury Policy Project, GotMercury/Turtle Island Restoration Network, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Sierra Club and more figured it was best to keep recklessly ignoring scientific and medical authorities and redouble their efforts to promote a fabricated seafood safety crisis.

Some judgment.

Instead of backing down, they returned to the very same agency that rigorously questioned the scientific assertions of their petition, demanding HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius release new advice for pregnant women so they can instead try and make their case in the court of public opinion for more restrictive guidelines. Dr. Edward Groth III, an expert with a colorful CV, alleges, the latest science show[s] far greater risks from methylmercury exposure than previously thought. The equally notorious Michael Bender, Mercury Policy Project president, warns, Recent scientific findings show health effects occurring below the level considered ‘safe’ just a few years ago.

Its interesting that Dr. Groth and Mr. Bender are pretending to be qualified and capable of judging what is and isnt sound science because theyre not. After all, their own reports on mercury in fish lack rigorous methodology and legitimate data. Their last so-called study on canned tuna, for instance, was based on anecdotal references, not evidence from surveys or objective examination. Theyve also refuted government fish consumption guidelines and peer-reviewed science from esteemed medical institutions over and over again.

With the eNGOs calls for public comment, theyre really trying to make it seem as if the necessity of fish consumption is up for debate. Its not and they know it but they dont care. Desperate for publicity, donor funding and relevance, these fading eco-activists are willing to contradict scientific fact, alarm pregnant women, and as a result, seriously jeopardize the public health.

That sure doesnt sound like the kind of people who know whats best for Americans.