If you follow this blog or fisheries news at all you know that overwhelming evidence has been piling up concerning the benefits of fish consumption during pregnancy and you might also know the joint 2004 FDA/EPA advisory on fish and pregnancy has caused immense confusion with consumers and desperately needs to be updated.

Well, earlier this week, two of the leading independent scientists in the area of Omega-3 fatty acids and brain function issued an extraordinary open letter to U.S. FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg calling for that 2004 advisory to be updated with the latest science, otherwise its advice could be causing, “inadvertent harm.”

The letter states: “[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stream of new publications and international scientific evaluations has persuaded us that this advice has become outdated and that it may be inadvertently causing harm, inconsistent with your public health mission, the letter states.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.” Furthermore “[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 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.“

Folks who have been distorting the science in this area for too long are surely annoyed at the pursuit of fact based advice by these independent experts.

Click here to read the complete letter online.

What’s more, the two men who authored the letter, Professor J. Thomas Brenna of Cornell University and Professor Michael Crawford of London Metropolitan University, have started an online petition urging FDA to complete its work on a draft report it initially released in January 2009 that used a new method for measuring the net beneficial effect of seafood consumption. Needless to say, NFI is praising the open letter, and is urging members of the public to ad their names to the petition.