February 18, 2015

Kevin Delaney
Editor in Chief
Business, Science
Quartz

VIA EMAIL

Dear Mr. Delaney,

I am writing to address editorial concerns with your online article, The mercury level in your tuna is rising.

The writer, Paul Drevnick, is also the author of the very University of Michigan study on which he reports and talks a lot about critical error(s) in other scientists studies of mercury in seafood. He also illustrates the concerns readers should derive from his own conclusions by suggesting that others might propose the mercury levels in tuna are approaching levels that are unsafe. But heres the critical error in the hyperbole he attaches to his study about mercury in fish its about mercury in fish not people. This is not a nutrition study nor is it food consumption research. Mr. Drevnick leaves out the fact that the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) limit for methyl mercury in fish, 1 ppm, was established, to limit consumers methyl mercury exposure to levels 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects.

Did Mr. Drevnicks team find average levels of 10 ppm or even 1 ppm? No. The levels his team found in Pacific yellowfin tuna were 0.3 parts-per-million. Far below the FDAs safety threshold for mercury in seafood.Unfortunately what Mr. Drevnivks team did find was an incomplete narrative that helps perpetuate an unsubstantiated fear about mercury in seafood, arguably the healthiest animal protein on the planet.

Perhaps for your next article Quartz could commission Drevnick to look into why Americans are not being diagnosed with mercury poisoning from the normal consumption of commercial seafood, despite his dire warnings. Or perhaps you could commission an independent reporter to look into the EPA-sponsored research on Selenium Health Benefit Value (HBVSe), or profile research that actually puts this snap shot of an issue into its proper and full perspective.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to hearing you.

Lynsee Fowler
Communications Manager
National Fisheries Institute

Real nutrition experts are clear when they urge Americans to eat more lean, nutrient-dense foods like canned tuna to jump-start New Years Resolutions. But Prevention magazine is doing just the opposite for its readers by promoting out of step messages about canned tuna that are sure to confuse and unnecessarily concern. Thanks Prevention.

Prevention claims that canned tuna can be riddled with unsafe levels of mercury. However, if they did minimal fact-checking, they would find the FDAs limit for mercury in seafood is 1.0 parts per million (ppm), with a ten-fold safety-factor built in, meaning a fish would actually have to exceed dose levels of 10.0 ppm to approach any adverse effects. According to the FDA, canned light tuna has 0.128 ppm and canned white tuna has 0.35 ppm, far below the FDAs threshold and any levels associated with harm. The FDA even promotes canned light tuna as a good source of low mercury seafood.

Prevention goes on to promote a tuna brand, Safe Catch, that will apparently solve all of tunas (non-existent) problems. [It] will actually be the first of its kind test every single fish it uses for mercury levels before a tuna gets anywhere near a can. A helpful bit of information for Prevention to know is that all ocean-going seafood has trace amounts of mercury, and has since the beginning of time due to underwater volcanic vents along the seabed. So, spoiler alert, each tuna they test will have trace amounts of mercury. However, fish, such as canned tuna, is eaten as a whole food, and the vast benefits of vitamins and minerals like B vitamins, iron, and selenium, along with essential omega-3 fatty acids and high-quality protein outweigh those trace amounts of mercury. In fact, levels of mercury in commercial seafood are just the same as they were nearly 100 years ago and no one is getting sick.

Prevention ends by crediting this new tuna brand as being the first (once on the market) that will meet Consumer Reports criteria for low mercury, a standard pure enough for pregnant women and small children.

Why does Prevention rely on a consumer electronics magazine, with a core competency in rating refrigerators and radios, for important nutrition standards?

And why does Prevention neglect to tell its readers that the FDA blasted Consumer Reports for its irresponsible advice on canned tuna?

“the methodology employed by Consumer Reports overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade.

–FDA

In fact the FDA updated its advice to pregnant women this summer, urging them to eat at least 2-3 seafood meals per week, including canned tuna.

Prevention: starting the year on a low-note.

This Op-Ed was published in Forbes on 9/19/14:

The Activist-Led Panic Against Mercury In Fish Is Harming The AmericanDiet

GUEST POST WRITTEN BY Gavin Gibbons

Mr. Gibbons is vice president of the National Fisheries Institute.

Next week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting a three-day forum focused on the increasingly politicized topic of mercury contamination in fish. Why should you care?Because of all the scattered skirmishes in the ongoing food warsfrom soda sizes to trans fats the activist-led attack on seafood is unique. Thats because if you stop eating those other foods, nothing bad is going to happen to you. But if you stop eating seafood, youre actually putting yourself at risk.

This warning would be easy to dismiss as rhetoric were it simply coming from the seafood industry. But it is based on countless independent, peer-reviewed studies showing that when we dont eat enough seafood we see cognitive impediments in children, and more preventable cardiovascular deaths in adults. Its a warning repeated by the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the National Institutes of Health, among others.

But for too long, these cautions have been drowned out by well-funded activist groups whose ideological agendaand whose bottom linedepend on scaring the daylights out of Americans.

Their boogeyman of choice is mercury. And they have been beating that drum for decades, warning that amidst the witches brew of pollutants spewed by coal-fired power plants, mercury was making its way into the fish on our plates. All manner of dreadful, irreversible health consequences were alleged to follow, for ourselves and our children. Weve all heard the scare stories and dire warnings for pregnant women and the lectures from wannabe celebrity gurus. Its scary stuff, and as the activists themselves readily admit, an effective fundraising message.

People start to care much more, and understand the threat to the ocean, when you tell them that their tuna fish is contaminated, one activist toldFortunemagazine about the focus on mercury. Its a dramatic, eye-opening moment for people.

Theres only one problem: essentially none of this narrative is true.

Itistrue that there are trace amounts of organic mercurycalled methylmercuryin fish. But its also true that no published, peer-reviewed scientific study can locate a single case of mercury toxicity from the normal consumption of commercial seafood in the United States. Nor is there any evidence that countries like Japan, where the average consumer eats as much as ten times more seafood than Americans, have suffered from an epidemic of mercury poisoning.

Unfortunately, thanks in large part to the agenda-driven scaremongering of eco-activists, Americans now have a very different problem: Were eating dangerously little seafood. Far too little to enjoy health benefitsmuch less experience any potential harm.

We know from peer-reviewed study after peer-reviewed study that seafood-rich diets can prevent early death from cardiovascular diseases in adults, and raise IQs in children.Researchers at Harvardeven went so far as to conclude in a study on mercury in fish that seafood is likely the single most important food one can consume for good health.

And yet despite efforts from august institutions to push back on the din of misinformation, the data also tells us that America is facing a lost generation of seafood eatersand that women are by far the worst off.

Federal advice issued in 2004 encouraging women to eat up to 12 ounces of seafood per week was intended to maximize the benefit and minimize the supposed risk for vulnerable groups. But this aim at subtlety had the exact opposite effect. Motivated by better safe than sorry reasoning, womens seafood intake plummeted, and perhaps worse, they stopped feeding fish to their children. Instead of up to 12 ounces, pregnant women are eating 1.89 ounces of fish per week, according to FDA data. And per a recent national survey, 91 percent of parents with children 12 years old and younger confirm that kids arent eating the recommended amount of two servings per week.

The good news is the government is taking steps to reverse the trend. Just this year the FDA, after years of painstaking study and input from EPA and numerous other agencies, issued new draft guidance that represents a step in the right direction. Taking on this slow-moving public-health crisis, the new advice now talks to pregnant women about eatingat least8 ounces of seafood per week, transitioning from a consumption ceiling, to a floor. The draft advice isnt perfect and its being reviewed and worked on by experts, but it represents fundamental change.

The bad news is the anxiety peddling narrative persists. Recently Consumer Reports, once a revered home electronics guide, became the latest to join the fray when they suggested pregnant women not eat tuna at all. FDA responded directly, telling Consumer Reports that they got it wrong. Consumer Reports recommendation overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade, FDA said. In response, the magazine admitted the FDA advice combines benefits and risks. Our approach to risk just looks at the risk.

We wont be able to reverse the damage done by decades of this kind of thinking until the hucksters and extremists who created the crisis are disqualified from the discussion.

Thats why this otherwise dry federal meeting on fish contaminants is so crucial. A major focus of the forum will be finding new and more effective approaches to communicating public health risks and benefits related to fish.

We could start by telling American families the truth.

Is it Groundhog Day? ‘Cause it sure feels like it. Consumer Reports (CR) is at it again with its typical anti-tuna rhetoric. In CRs latest tuna tale, they attempt to spook children. Thankfully, parents can find accurate seafood advice on easily-accessible independent websites, to avoid the blatant misinformation propagated by CR.

The federal authority on health and nutrition, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), urges pregnant women and young children to eat more fish, including canned tuna, and just last month blasted Consumer Reports for its August seafood report, calling CRs methodology flawed because it overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade.

The new FDA /EPA advice to pregnant women and young children on eating seafood is based on a 10 year review of 110 independent, published, peer-reviewed studies. The volume of time, attention and resources given to the FDA/EPA study absolutely dwarfs the review this consumer electronics magazine touts.

In fact, according to the FDAs most conservative scientific estimate (page 113) pregnant women can eat up to 56 ounces per week of albacore tuna, and 164 ounces per week of light canned tuna.

For Consumer Reports to suggest pregnant women eat zero ounces per week, and now for children to limit or avoid tuna altogether, is nothing short of embarrassing. With recommendations that fly in the face of international health organizations and legitimate public health professionals, CR continues to find itself further removed from mainstream nutrition science.

And in addition to dismissing a decades worth of science that reviewed 110 independent, published studies, CR further marginalizes itself by citing a single unpublished, not peer-reviewed report that, didnt conduct a survey to find out how commonly tuna is served in schools, adding that [the study author has] heard ‘anecdotal’ references to the frequency of tuna served in lunches of a friends grandson in New Jersey.

Its time for Consumer Reports to get back to its core competency: testing vacuum cleaners and the latest Prius. Leave important nutrition advice to the MDs, PhDs, and RDs who dive into years of peer-reviewed science that most certainly dont rely on hearsay from friends (or their grandsons in New Jersey) before making any recommendations.

Stacey Naggiar,
Associate Producer, Health
Health & Medicine

VIA EMAIL

Dear Ms. Naggiar,

I am writing to address fundamental editorial problems with your online article, Pregnant and Poor? Eating Healthy Just Got Harder” and associated segments embedded in the article.

The reason eating seafood during pregnancy just got harder is because Consumers Reports, a consumer electronics magazine, is propagating flawed and reckless nutrition recommendations that fly in the face of more than a decade of seafood science. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has blasted Consumer Reports for its flawed methodology and its limited analysis that focuses exclusively on the mercury levels in fish without considering the known positive nutritional benefits attributed to fish.

Its concerning that a venerable outlet like NBC News gives equal editorial weight to an organization whose core competency lies in testing toasters and refrigerators as it does to the FDA, the federal authority on food safety and nutrition.

Both the segment and written article fail to give space to FDAs acting chief scientist Stephen Ostroff, M.D. who, talking about the June 2014 updated seafood advice to pregnant women said, A large percentage of women are simply not eating enough fish, and as a result they are not getting the developmental and health benefits that fish can provide. Studies very consistently demonstrate that among women who consumed more fish during pregnancy or at least the amounts were currently recommending that there were improvements in children.

Yet, the segment and article do feature Urvashi Rangan, director of consumer safety and sustainability at Consumer Reports a title that does not suggest expertise in either nutrition or obstetrics.

The new FDA/EPA advice to pregnant women is based on a 10 year review of 110 independent, published, peer-reviewed studies. The volume of time, attention and resources given to the FDA/EPA study absolutely dwarfs any review a consumer electronics magazine could accomplish, yet both are given equal editorial weight; in fact Consumer Reports is given more editorial weight than the decade long peer-reviewed investigation by the worlds preeminent food and environmental safety regulators. Such misrepresentation does a huge disservice to your readers.

Accurate scientific context is missing throughout the piece. For example, Consumer Reports Rangan is quite concerned while claiming certain FDA data on light canned tuna found levels of mercury that were twice what the average is. She forgets to add that the FDA limit for mercury in fish is 1.0 ppm (with a 10-fold safety factor built in, making the level of concern 10.0 ppm.) The average mercurylevelfor canned light tuna is 0.1 ppm. The simple math shows Consumer Reports expressing public alarm about mercury levels at 0.2 ppm. Keep in mind, this is despite the demonstrable fact that the FDAs action level of 1.0ppm was established to limit consumers methyl mercury exposure to levels 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects.

Suggesting low-income pregnant women avoid canned tuna is wildly irresponsible. The FDAs own calculations (page 113) find pregnant women can eat up to 56 ounces per week of albacore tuna, and 164 ounces per week of light canned tuna. Canned tuna is an affordable and accessible way for women to eat seafood during pregnancy.

I look forward to your review of and comment on our concerns.

Lynsee Fowler
Communications Manager
National Fisheries Institute

cc Lisa Tolin
Senior Health Editor

The latest on NFI’s challenge to the New York Times as seen in thearticle belowby the Media Research Center:

Accuracy must not matter anymore, at least at The New York Times. The paper scoffed at accusations that one of its articles was misleading and contained blatant errors. The June 11 opinion blog by Mark Bittman promoted the work of journalist (and mother) Dominique Browning, implying that she was a grassroots activist and failing to note that she was employed by an environmental organization that raked in more than $16 million in 2011 alone.

The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) wrote a letter to the Times pointing this out, as well as challenging Bittmans data on the dangers of eating tuna. The Times responded by arguing that neither factual point was important.

Bittman, a New York Times opinion columnist, wrote a June 11 piece entitled Giving up Tuna? Breathing Is Next. In it, Bittman praised the work of Browning and her Moms Clean Air Force campaign, portraying her as a mother who saw something wrong and spoke out about it. I was neither an environmentalist nor an activist, but I could no longer ignore important issues, Bittman quoted Browning as saying.

But Browning is no grassroots activist. Shes an employee with the hard-left Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The EDF is dedicated to combating manmade climate change. It had a revenue of $11,915,138 and an additional $3,493,777 for its 501(c)(4) in 2011 alone, according to the organizations 990 tax forms available through Guidestar. Its total net assets were listed at $156,584,507. The EDF promoted Brownings work in its 2012 annual report, noting that a big part of our push came from Clean Air Force which it claimed has a membership 100,000 strong.

Bittmans piece is now being used for marketing purposes on the Moms Clean Air Force site.

In response to the Fisheries Institute, the Times argued that while the relationship between Moms Clean Air Force and the EDF was not mentioned in the column, the connection is on the groups Web site, to which Mr. Bittmans column linked. Apparently, the Times can be vague about facts, as long as readers who feel like doing background research can find the information on their own.

Bittmans blog was a rant against not just the tuna industry, but against the coal industry in general. The Fisheries Institute contested the number that the Times claimed for children affected by mercury levels in fish. According to the group, even the Environmental Protection Agency, which put out the number that Bittman cited, has since disavowed that statistic. In fact, the FDA suggested that pregnant women eat 12 ounces of tuna a week, particularly because of tunas low mercury levels. Furthermore, two rulings in the California courts found that the vast majority of mercury in seafood was naturally occurring.

The Times admitted that the numbers were questionable, but stood by them anyway. The Times argued that while there is some dispute over the number of infants who are at risk of cognitive or other impairments due to mercury exposure, the 200,000 figure seems a reasonable estimate.

Gavin Gibbons, the Director of Media Relations for NFI, told BMI that it is borderline absurd that the Times would suggest readers should essentially uncover these ties for themselves by searching through source websites. Especially when the Society of Professional Journalists own Code of Ethics says writers should, Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility. Case in point, perhaps?

Below is the full text of the New York Times reply to Gibbons:

Dear Mr. Gibbons,

Thank you very much for your letter. We appreciate your concerns and take them seriously.

We have looked into your arguments and concluded that there were no factual errors in Mr. Bittman’s column.

While the relationship between Moms Clean Air Force and the EDF was not mentioned in the column, the connection is on the group’s Web site, to which Mr. Bittman’s column linked. We identified Ms. Browning as a journalist and, while she has written for The Times, we are hardly her primary platform. As for the phrase “warned off,” it is a plausible interpretation of the government’s advice to pregnant women. Finally, while there is some dispute over the number of infants who are at risk of cognitive or other impairments due to mercury exposure, the 200,000 figure seems a reasonable estimate if anything, a conservative one based on data from 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and other sources.

If you wish to write a letter to the editor to make your points about the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids, and about the potential health benefits of fish more generally, even for pregnant women, you are welcome to do so. You can send it to letters@nytimes.com and, if you cc me, I will be sure to flag our letters editor’s attention.

Again, thank you for sharing your concerns.

Sincerely,
George Kalogerakis
Deputy Editor, Op-Ed

Its been suggested that social media is a Pandoras Box. Its become as much a beast-feeding exercise for some as it has an essential tool of promotion and communications for others. Regardless of where you fall on the medium, social media has arrived at the International Boston Seafood Show and proves to be no longer in its infancy. A robust presence can be found on multiple platforms from outside arbiters to nearly every booth.

There is now no excuse to not be on top of every aspect of the show. There are 500,000 square feet to cover and a cadre of cameras, bloggers and twitter devotees who are willing to do it for you. You can watch the show go from boxes

..to booths

with the simple click of a mouse.

In a space once reserved, just a few short years ago, for only the most social media savvy, we now see virtual coverage of the show reaching a fever pitch thanks in part to a contest promoted by iPura.

Its official. Gone are the days of screeching fax machines belching out unsolicited offer sheets and new product announcements. Here to stay are instant twitter updates, real time reporting and Vlogs. So, while there is more than a hint of irony in suggesting the sky is the limit for the social media coverage of a product that comes from the sea, such is in fact that case as the IBSS launches into the social media stratosphere.

Todays not groundhog day is it?

The GAO s latest updated high risk list, February 2013, highlights the fact that despite bipartisan efforts to get rid of the wasteful program that has spent $20 million in 4 years and not inspected a single fish this special interest boondoggle is still around (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283 p. 198,199).

Remember in February of 2011 GAO reported to Congress (GAO-11-278, p. 112) that the catfish inspection program was at high risk for waste, fraud and abuse by “splitting up seafood oversight and expending scarce resources.” In March of 2011, GAO again identified the USDA catfish inspection program as duplicative in its report on areas where the government could reduce duplication of government programs (GAO-11-318SP, p. 8). In May of 2012 GAO could not have been any more specific when it titled a report; Responsibility for Inspecting Catfish Should Not Be Assigned to USDA (GAO-12-411.)

Now GAO is back and as clear as ever:

Provisions of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Farm Bill) that assigned FSIS responsibility for issuing final regulations to carry out a catfish examination and inspectionprogram would result in duplication of federal programs and cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually without enhancing the safety of catfish intended for human consumption.

To enhance the effectiveness of the food safety system for catfish and avoid duplication of effort and cost, GAO suggested that Congress consider repealing provisions of the Farm Bill thatassigned USDA responsibility for examining and inspecting catfish and for creating a catfish inspection program. Congress has not taken such action.

Did you know theres a new bi-partisan effort in the House and Senate underway to get rid of this wasteful handout?

With 17 million followers on Twitter, Kim Kardashian has an enormous opportunity to improve lives simply by sharing accurate information with her fans.

Unfortunately she missed one of those opportunities recently when she spoke to the Daily Mail about her pregnancy. According to the tabloid she is longing for seafood although she knows its not encouraged for pregnant women.

Thats wrong. Experts say pregnant women should eat more seafood, not less.

• The USDAs Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend everyone, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, eat 2 to 3 servings of a variety of seafood each week (8 to 12 ounces) to improve eye and brain development.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) says there are increased brain development risks in babies whose mothers dont eat enough seafood during pregnancy.

This is still news for far too many women including celebrities like Kardashian and Megan Fox. Ms. Fox recently told Jay Leno that she too craved seafood during her pregnancy but avoided it because of unfounded fears. Again, pregnant and breastfeeding women should eat at least 2 servings of seafood each week.

Its difficult for new moms to separate fact from fiction especially when celebrities spread misinformation about limiting fish during pregnancy. But the negative consequences are very real. By raising unfounded doubts about seafood, they are discouraging people, especially pregnant women, from giving their babies the nutrition they need for the best start in life.

Everyone should follow the recommendations to eat their fish during pregnancy. And celebrities should use their huge audiences to spread the word about the importance of eating fish to ensure a healthy pregnancy.

Update:Naomi Campbell may be a supermodel, but shes certainly no role model. (And yes, it has everything to do with throwing tantrums, assaulting police officers and chucking phones at people). Her latest dangerous move is tellingExtrathat she doesnt eat tuna because of the high mercury level. But as we know, everyone in her path is better off ducking, or in this case, muting the TV, to stay safe from the harm she causes.

Data reported was false and has not been peer-reviewed or published in scientific journal.

The National Fisheries Institute is asking all news outlets to correct a fraudulent story that recently aired about mercury levels in seafood exceeding guidelines. Following is our statement and supporting data:

The Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) recently misled the public on the safety of commercial seafood. It presented itself as an organization that was qualified to advise the public on health matters and it presented its data as scientific fact. The statistics that were reported never stood up to the rigor of clinical peer-review and were never published in any journal. The data presented is the opinion of BRI, a wildlife organization, that readily admits is responding to strong public interest and governmental negotiations of a mercury treaty by the United National Environment Program (UNEP).

The USDAs 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourages everyone to eat at least two fish meals a week, especially pregnant or breastfeeding mothers. This advice is based on the review of scores of published peer-reviewed scientific research.”

Ten species of fish including shrimp, salmon, canned tuna and tilapia account for 90 percent of the seafood Americans eat and all are low in mercury.”

Many environmental activist organizations try to conflate mercury pollution with scant traces of naturally-occurring mercury found in all ocean species of fish. Suggesting that pollution has increased mercury levels in commercial seafood to unsafe levels is tantamount to screaming fire in a crowded theater.”

Not eating the minimum recommended amount of seafood is the second-largest dietary contributor to preventable deaths in the United States (according to a peer-reviewed Harvard study) costing 84,000 lives each year. Discouraging a fish-rich diet by manufacturing fear is the real harm, and groups like BRI should be held accountable by the media and not given a platform from which to broadcast skewed rhetoric.

Contact: Gavin Gibbons (703) 752-8891
ggibbons@nfi.org