Top MDs and PhDs push regulators to revise outdated guidance to pregnant women

July 2, 2010 Washington, D.C. Two of the worlds top experts on brain and neurological development are being joined by 125 others in calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to update its 2004 advice on fish and pregnancy because it is out of date and may be inadvertently causing harm. An open letter from Professors Thomas Brenna of Cornell University and Michael Crawford of London Metropolitan University was delivered to FDA Commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg in May when the petition was posted online

“[A] consistent stream of new publications and international scientific evaluations has persuaded us that this advice has become outdated and that it may be inadvertently causing harm, inconsistent with your public health mission, the letter states. We commend FDA for its history of willingness to modify that advice when warranted by new information. The time for the next update has come.”

In only a few short weeks the online petition has garnered 125 signatures, including PhDs from Cornell and Oxford, and MDs from Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The list includes world class scientists from Denmark, Australia, the UK, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and Iceland.

This petition includes a whos who of independent researchers, said Jennifer McGuire MS RD, director of nutrition communications for the National Fisheries Institute. They all know that over the past six years a wealth of science has been produced that shows the real risk to pregnant women and unborn children is in not eating enough fish.

According to Brenna and Crawford, science had not advanced enough by 2004 to properly consider the full health benefits of eating fish. “[I]t is no longer consistent with the recommendation to limit consumption of all fish to a maximum of 12 ounces per week for pregnant and lactating women and women who may become pregnant,” according to the letter. “There is persuasive new evidence that consumption of more than 12 ounces per week of most marketplace species will actually improve fetal neurodevelopment. This improvement occurs in spite of methyl-mercury in most, if not all fish.”

For more than 60 years, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) and its members have provided American families with the variety of sustainable seafood essential to a healthy diet. For more information visit: www.AboutSeafood.com.

Contact Information

Gavin Gibbons
(703) 752-8891
ggibbons@NFI.org