Dr. David Acheson, is the former Chief Medical Officer at the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service and former Chief Medical Officer at the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. That means he’s been the Food Safety Czar at both agencies.

His latest column in Forbes: Catfish Regulation — A Perfect Example Of Wasted Resources In The US Government illustrates how real food safety experts feel about the USDA Catfish regulation program. The whole thing is, without question, worth the read. Here are some highlights:

• -“Proponents of USDA catfish regulation have long insisted the need to switch catfish, and just catfish, from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Agriculture Department (USDA) is predicated on a public health concern. This narrative is a compelling one but is also nonsense.”
• -“The USDA have touted the fact that they found shipments of catfish that contain chemical residues since taking over catfish inspection. However, what the USDA fails to point out is that the only reason it found these adulterated shipments was via FDA data.”
• -“Updated rhetoric in favor of keeping the program in place suggests the USDA’s recent discovery is an example that the program works. The untold truth about such USDA “successes” is that they were based on FDA targeting of suspected shipments. The USDA program has no such intelligence on incoming shipments and relies on FDA lists and logs. It’s not an unequivocal example of USDA’s superiority, it’s evidence of ongoing duplicating and a regulatory pantomime that goes along with it.”

The U.S. announced on Monday (06/06/16) that the North American lobster is not a threat to Europe and does not meet the criteria of an invasive species. A letter by Eileen Sobeck, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at the National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was sent to EU officials stating “the US has serious concerns with the risk assessment used to support Sweden’s proposal to include American lobster (Homarus americanus) on the EU list of invasive species”.

The U.S. and Canada are refuting the Swedish Risk assessment, as it is not supported by the best scientific evidence available. The U.S. letter is backed up by through scientific reviews, including a joint report done by federal and state fisheries who extensively researched the claims presented in the Swedish Risk assessment. The U.S. scientists cited numerous peer reviewed scientific studies countering the Swedish assessment claims as unfounded.

Under the Invasive species definition, the North American lobster would need to not only arrive (in this case through escapement) and survive, but also become established and spread. To date, there is no scientific evidence to show a viable population can establish in the EU and experts say that’s unlikely to occur.

The CDC is out with its annual outbreak report, this one looks at data from 2014, and it’s worth offering a bit of perspective before the media hears from the hyperbole engines who will assuredly issue press releases that announce the sky is falling and the end of days is upon us.

Of the outbreaks attributed to a specific food product, the CDC numbers show seafood accounted for 63 outbreaks and 335 illnesses which makes up about 12% of the total. Numerically seafood tops the list based simply on the number of outbreaks but is nowhere near the top in actually causing illnesses.

By comparison land animals accounted for 1,182 illnesses making up 43% of the total of attributed illnesses. Interestingly seeded vegetables had only 7 outbreaks but accounted for 428 illnesses.

For reporters, producers and editors who might be covering this CDC compilation it’s important to recognize and report on the difference between outbreaks and illnesses. It’s quite possible for Product A. to account for 10 outbreaks with 30 illnesses, while Product B. accounts for 1 outbreak with 1,000 illnesses.  The measure of actual impact is clearly illnesses.

NBC’s Today show has a fairly sad history when it comes to accurate reporting on seafood. But kudos to the morning show for making great strides in turning that unenviable track record around. These days they usually reach out for responsible input before running with the latest hyperbolic proclamation. Today they’re addressing 5 foods you should be feeding your baby and in keeping with the latest in nutrition science fish made the list. Hats off to Today.

An English-language news outlet in Europe is reporting on a French Consumer Reports-style magazine that’s giving tips on grocery store products to avoid. The French magazine appears to take aim at canned tuna with a round of proclamations based on some fairly common quasi-science that we’ve seen from ill-informed activist types more than once on this side of the pond.

The French prognosticator—in a “study” that is neither peer-reviewed nor published in a technical journal and not in the least bit scientifically credible—suggests that a few of the canned tuna samples they tested exceeded the 1mg/kg (or ppm) level for mercury. With this information they pontificate on the relative safety of said tuna and suggest ones to avoid. This is the same publication that simultaneously reports on makeup removers, dishwasher tablets and whether your feet can be allergic to your shoes—cutting-edge stuff.

Were this nonsense published here in the states we might point out a few things, such as: the FDA’s 1.0 ppm level for mercury in fish includes a 10-fold safety factor. That means there’s a thousand percent cushion built in. To be specific, according to the FDA the level of concern from mercury in fish does not even start until 10.0 ppm. So, if a fish begins to approach the 1.0 ppm level or even slightly exceeds it, no scientist worth their salt (or sel) would suggest there’s imminent harm in the offing.

A new article in Examiner.com, that claims “seafood might be bad for us after all,” exposes a fundamental lack of understanding of science coupled with a clearly lacking editorial process.

The article discusses a new study about environmental chemicals. To be clear, the study does not measure the health effects – good, bad, or otherwise – of eating seafood, or as the author specifically mentions, tuna.

Concern with pollutants is not specific to seafood. In fact, here is some perspective Examiner.com left out. Calculated using toxic equivalence (TEQ), the major dietary sources of PCBs and dioxins are beef, chicken, and pork (34% of total TEQ); dairy products (30%); vegetables (22%); fish and shellfish (9%); and eggs (5%). That’s right, people get more PCB’s from vegetables than fish. Would Examiner.com suggest salads “might be bad for us after all?”

In addition, the two and a half minute video that precedes the written article doesn’t say a word about fish or seafood a single time. And, the author of the study specifically says, “I eat fish and I consider fish to be a very healthy food.”

It’s clear the headline is a blatant violation of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics that says, “Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story.” The study did not even look at the effect of eating seafood on human health… yet Examiner.com alleges in its headline, “The fish is fishy: Why are researchers saying fish is bad for us?”

This article does a huge disservice to readers by scaring them away from a food they need to eat more of. Because of the known benefits of seafood consumption, researchers warn “Avoidance of modest fish consumption due to confusion regarding risks and benefits could result in thousands of excess Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) deaths annually and suboptimal neurodevelopment in children.”

The Associated Press has taken home a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on labor issues. The AP’s in-depth analysis and reporting went far beyond the broad brush strokes we’ve seen from various other news outlets that put little or no effort into finding specific evidence of labor challenges.  Generic reporting on supposition and hyperbole does not win Pulitzers and the Associated Press proved that with this honor. Congratulations to reporter Martha Mendoza and her team.

Yesterday at 9:04 am we reached out to Time Magazine reporter Alice Park, noting that there were no voices in her Environmental Working Group (EWG) mercury story presenting anything other than an EWG narrative ripped straight from the group’s press release. We followed up with two more emails illustrating how independent science stands in stark contrast to EWG’s recommendations.

Approximately 8 hours later Park added these 15 words to her 700 word story, noting that the National Fisheries Institute disagreed with the conclusions in the report calling it a “slickly packaged marketing piece designed to drive traffic to its mercury calculator; promotional click bait.” While she chose those 15 we sent her 760 worth of detailed information.

Ms. Park and Time Magazine appear to have ignored the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics admonition to “respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity and fairness,” and when they did respond they simply added a line about the National Fisheries Institute’s opposition to EWG’s work. This is tantamount to implementing a strategy of ignore the journalistic failures and they will go away. Not dissimilar to the ignore facts and they will go away strategy apparently already employed in the writing of the Time article.

Since Ms. Park and Time Magazine refuse to address the substantive points we have raised in numerous contacts with them we will endeavor to correct the record here:
Time Magazine’s chosen headline is “Canned Tuna Is Too High In Mercury for Pregnant Women: Health Group.”

For starters, the EWG work did not test canned tuna for mercury… at all. Furthermore, nowhere does Ms. Park mention that the FDA’s most recent study runs completely counter to this assertion.

In June 2014, the FDA released “The FDA Quantitative Assessment of the Net Effects on Fetal Neurodevelopment from Eating Commercial Fish”. Regarding tuna, the FDA’s most conservative estimates state (on page 111) that pregnant women can eat 56 ounces of canned albacore and 164 ounces of canned light tuna a week, before the risks begin to approach a level that might outweigh the benefits.

Also unreported is the fact EWG’s work is not peer-reviewed, published science and reams of just such independent research went into crafting the FDA’s Net Effects Report, which stands in direct contrast to EWG’s conclusions.

What’s more EWG’s conclusions, that Time reports on without challenging, are based on studies the group admits look at mercury in a vacuum. No one with any background in nutrition science would accept that. Certainly not FDA and not USDA either. EWG’s own report even points to the USDA Dietary Guidelines as the gold standard—those guidelines contradict EWG’s conclusions as well saying, “benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks, even for pregnant women.”

The problems with EWG’s agenda-driven promotional piece are numerous, but to report on it without researching the claims made or challenging them at all highlights a problem within Time Magazine. Failure to simply address both sides of any one issue or challenge claims made in a press release exposes bush-league journalism that is far from the standard most readers expect from Time magazine.