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Toxic Tuna: Mercury Contamination In Chicago Restaurant Tuna Sushi 8/30/2006 Toxic-Tuna-Report.pdf News Release

Executive Summary

Methylmercury is a neurotoxin especially dangerous to developing fetuses and young children. GotMercury.Org and Environment Illinois tested mercury concentrations in twenty tuna sushi samples from ten high-rated Chicago sushi restaurants.

Key Findings:

•    The mean mercury concentration of the Chicago-area tuna sushi samples studied was 0.446 parts per million (ppm) total mercury—close to the 0.50 ppm legal limit in Canada and the European Union.

•    Of the 20 samples tested, 14, or 70 percent, exceeded the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s (IEPA) special advisory threshold for methylmercury. The special advisory threshold, designed to give guidance to Illinois anglers who eat their catch, is the mercury contamination level at which the agency recommends women of childbearing age and children eat no more than one meal of fish per month.

•    One in seven of the samples were unsafe for women and children to eat at all because their mercury concentration exceeded 0.730 ppm, the average of king mackerel, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tells pregnant or nursing mothers, women of childbearing age, and children never to eat.

•    Of these, two (10 percent) of the tuna samples were unsafe for all consumers because they exceeded the FDA action level of 1.0 ppm. The action level is the legal limit for fish sold in the United States; when fish exceed the action level, the FDA is empowered to remove them from the retail market.

These findings suggest that members of sensitive populations, such as children, pregnant or nursing mothers, and women in their childbearing years who might become pregnant, should not eat tuna sushi. In addition, based on these findings, we recommend the following changes in policy:

Policy Recommendations:

1.   Restaurants and stores that sell tuna sushi, sashimi, and `ahi should post clear and concise mercury advisories so that consumers may make informed choices about what to eat.

2.  The FDA should update its fish consumption advisory for sensitive populations to recommend that they do not eat tuna. The FDA should also require restaurants and supermarkets to post its mercury advisory.

The FDA currently warns women of childbearing age and children that they should not eat king mackerel, (average mercury concentration: 0.730 ppm), swordfish (0.97 ppm), shark (0.988 ppm), and tilefish (1.45 ppm). Because tuna sushi often contains as much mercury as king mackerel, the FDA should recommend that sensitive populations avoid tuna altogether.

3.  FDA should collect more data about mercury concentrations in fish and pull fish from the market when their mercury concentration exceeds the 1ppm action level.

4.   In the absence of federal leadership, state and local governments should take the initiative to require point-of-sale mercury advisories.