Fair Warning

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Oceana's and the Mercury Policy Project's report, Fair Warning: Why Grocery Stores Should Tell Parents About Mercury in Fish, is stopping the presses. The study, which details the results of a major, 22-state mercury testing project, was covered by the Associated Press, CNN and tons of other news outlets. It found that swordfish and tuna bought in 22 states at major grocery chains like Safeway, Shaw's, Albertsons and Whole Foods contain levels of mercury that the federal government has determined may be hazardous to human health, particularly children.

An average mercury concentration of 1.1 parts per million (ppm) was found in the 24 swordfish samples tested. The FDA has set the "Action Level" (the level at which they can act to remove a product from the market) for commercial fish at 1.0ppm, so you can see why an average level of 1.1ppm has caught people's attention. Two samples, including one from Maine and one from Rhode Island, contained more than 2 ppm, twice the FDA Action Level. The testing results also suggest that a typical shopper buying swordfish in a grocery store has a 50 percent chance of buying a swordfish steak with mercury levels considered unsafe by the FDA.

31 samples of fresh or frozen tuna steaks averaged 0.33 ppm of mercury, a level comparable to that of canned albacore tuna -- a fish specifically targeted for limited consumption by women of childbearing age and children in the 2004 joint advisory from the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The second page of the same advisory has similar consumption advice for tuna steaks.

As our own Jackie Savitz pointed out in many of these stories, "The results clearly demonstrate the need for signs in our supermarkets...people have a right to know what's in their food, and posting warning signs in grocery stores where these fish are sold is a simple, common-sense solution that fulfills that right."