FDA Fish Recommendations Challenged

Oct. 4, 2007 -- A coalition of nutrition experts and groups, including several federal agencies, on Thursday challenged government warnings that pregnant women limit their fish consumption because of contamination.

The group is criticizing a March 2004 advisory from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urging young children and also women who are nursing, pregnant, or who could become pregnant to limit consumption of fish low in mercury to 12 ounces, or about two meals, per week.

The advisory also recommended those groups not to eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish because they contain high levels of methylmercury. For albacore tuna, up to 6 ounces per week is acceptable.

But experts representing the coalition Thursday recommended that women eat no less than 12 ounces of fish per week. They also recommend that 6 of those ounces can be from albacore tuna.

The group criticized the government for discounting the benefits of seafood consumption. They said while some fish is contaminated with mercury, the risk is outweighed by fish’s benefits for fetal and neonatal development. But the impact of the 2004 advisory is that women are eating less fish, especially during pregnancy.

“The intent of the FDA advisory was a good intention,” said Roger B. Newman, MD, director of obstetrics at the Medical University of South Carolina and spokesman for the Maternal Nutrition Group. “The unintended consequence has really been a major public health issue."

“We’re concerned that there is, in a sense, an overreaction to those recommendations,” said J. Thomas Brenna, PhD, a professor of human nutrition at Cornell University.

Risk and Benefits

Fish contain high levels of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, nutrients known to be important for normal neural development in fetuses and young children.

Methylmercury can interfere with proper development of the nervous system of unborn and young children.

A statement emailed by the FDA Thursday said the agency “is carefully reviewing the scientific basis for the recommendations.”

The Maternal Nutrition Group issued the recommendations along with the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, an umbrella group including the March of Dimes, several drug companies, and federal agencies including a division of the CDC.

Representatives of the Maternal Nutrition Group said it received $60,000 in grants from the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood industry group, to promote the recommendations. Two experts representing them also said they had received individual honoraria by the seafood industry.

While the group recommended a minimum amount of weekly fish consumption, it urged no maximum.