Heading into the Labor Day weekend more than one editor, reporter or producer has scanned the news horizon and found little to chose from, outside the hand shaking and baby kissing of a Presidential election in full swing.

Today, while digging into the proverbial health file CBS Radio found a story about fish, mercury and heart attacks. They reported with great haste that a new study found mercury in fish appears to counteract the heart healthy benefits of the omega 3s.

Fire up the air raid siren and alert the press.

One problem, the reporting was a bit misleading becauseumwell the study essentially found the opposite relationship between mercury and omega-3s.

The study of 1,600 men from Sweden and Finland found men with high levels of mercury in the body had an increased risk of heart attacks, while those with a high concentration of omega-3s had a lower risk. Reporting from other news outlets on the very same study noted, for men with more of the fats [omega-3s], it took higher levels of mercury to see an increased heart attack risk – suggesting the two compounds might have opposite effects on the ticker.

Whats more, not included in the CBS report were public comments made by a preeminent cardiologist/epidemiologist from the Harvard School of Public Health who said the results of study, probably don’t apply to most Americans, who have lower mercury levels than the men studied, and that few people have high mercury levels and low omega-3s, because mercury from fish often comes with the healthy fats.

Whoops.

To CBS Radios credit their executive producer saw the error and pulled the story off the air.

So, lets hope journalists will use this as a cautionary tale this Labor Day weekend where they will, undoubtedly, be confronted with mind numbing $4 dollar gas stories and redundant reach-the-beach forecast.