In the PR game, one of the oldest news hooks in the book is to base a story on an upcoming holiday. While it’s cheesy, it’s also effective, and can help get even the most mundane story into print.

Earlier today, Monica Eng from the Chicago Tribune‘s food blog, The Stew, fell for it, and we can’t help but be disappointed: “Looking for an inexpensive last minute Mother’s Day gift,” writes Eng. “Consider talking to mom about mercury contaminated fish.”

Really, Monica?

Eng followed up that line with a few boilerplate quotes from Buffy Martin Tarbox of GotMercury.org, where she takes some pot shots atfish and talks about her organization’s latest scare project concerning San Francisco restaurant sushi.

A couple of points:

• No peer reviewed medical journal has ever published any evidence of a case of methylmercury poisoning caused by the normal consumption of commercial seafood in the U.S. The health effects of mercury exposure as science understands them are the result of industrial poisonings of the food supply in Japan and Iraq over three decades ago, not consumption of commercial fish found in your local grocery store or restaurant. Furthermore, in 2007, the Journal of Nutrition reported, “poisoning from fish consumption has not been reported since those 2 events.”
• The latest study from GotMercury is nothing but a replication of a story that appeared in the New York Times in 2008 — a story that was widely debunked at the time by Slate, Time Magazine and the Center for Independent Journalism. Furthermore, the newspaper’s public editor rebuked the reporter, writing that the story was “less balanced than it should have been,” and “required careful judgment and missed.”
• Public health officials have continually pointed out that the real health risk to Americans is not eating enough fish, not theoretical risk from trace levels of mercury in seafood. Those same public health officials have pointed out that 84,000 additional deaths can in the U.S. can be attributed to the fact that Americans are not getting enough Omega-3 fatty acids in their diet, a nutrient that is found in fish in abundance.

Later, Eng points to an online package created by the newspaper’s Michael Hawthorne. Safe to say, Hawthorne isnt quite the independent third party observer hes made out to be, a closer look at his reporting raises more questions than it answers. For more on him, click here and have a look at our archives where we dissect hisreporting and debunk his disinformation.

Oh andif you are looking for a last minute Mother’s Day gift, why not give Mom a hug and a kiss and take a pass on the fear mongering?