Well, I found more info on mercury levels in other Gulf species, and it does not look good. Here is a copy of the article for anyone who would like to read it, as well as a link to the page if anyone would like more info:
http://www.eces.org/archive/ec/np_articles/static/99577800025587.shtml
Scientists Say U.S. Govt Ignoring Widespread Mercury Contamination of Popular Marine Fish Such as Amberjack, Ling, Redfish, Red Snapper Because of Consequences to Seafood Industry and the Coal-fired Power Plants that Are Biggest Emitters of Mercury.
(7/22/2001)Several popular commercial and recreational fish species caught in the Gulf of Mexico - including the restaurant delicacies amberjack, ling and redfish - may contain so much methylmercury that they should not be sold to the public, according to standards set by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Samples of these and other commonly eaten fish collected by the Mobile Register and sent to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality for testing were found to have mercury levels significantly higher than 0.5 parts per million, the threshold for government consumption advisories. Three 30- to 50-pound ling samples averaged 1.53 parts per million of mercury.
The tests commissioned by the Register indicated that a 4-ounce serving of a 10- to 20-pound redfish caught off Dixie Bar at the mouth of Mobile Bay would contain all the mercury a 158-pound adult male could safely handle in a month, under standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That's about half a typical restaurant serving.
Gulf-caught amberjack purchased at local markets were equally high in the toxic metal, which can cause severe neurological problems and birth defects.
At present, no consumption warnings exist for any of the species tested by the Register. In March, the FDA advised women of childbearing age and children under age 12 to avoid king mackerel, swordfish, shark, and tilefish. But results of the Register's tests highlighted what a number of scientists say is a gaping hole in the government's fish-food safety net: Many fish preferred by American consumers are likely contaminated with dangerous levels of mercury, but federal and state authorities haven't tested them enough to know whether they are safe to eat.
Some scientists suspect that federal regulators know they would find high methylmercury levels in many of the fish that form the backbone of America's seafood supply. "They don't want to rock the boat. That's why they don't do the testing," said Charles Moore, a marine biologist with the South Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, who wrote an influential review of mercury contamination in marine fish.
"If you take the EPA and recent FDA (mercury) warnings to heart, it has tremendous consequences for the seafood industry, for restaurants, supermarkets, recreational fishermen, even the eating habits of the American consumer. It also has tremendous consequences for the energy industry - which is the single-biggest contributor of mercury in the environment - at a really critical time for the country's energy needs," Moore said.
Since the 1970s, government scientists have known that methylmercury contamination in fish poses a serious threat to health. When mercury is released from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants and other sources, it falls on to the land and water. In the water, it is absorbed by microorganisms and transformed into an even more dangerous compound called methylmercury. The methylmercury becomes more concentrated as it works its way up the food chain in snails, crabs, then larger and larger fish, and ultimately in people who consume those fish.
At present, there are nearly 2,000 mercury warnings in effect for freshwater lakes and rivers in this country. Marine warnings are less common, though the mercury problem in saltwater received publicity in 1996, when Florida issued a consumption advisory for king mackerel. Other Gulf states followed suit in 1997.
The National Academy of Science reported last year that the neurological effects of methylmercury toxicity are most pronounced and damaging to children under 12, and to those exposed in the womb. The academy estimated that "over 60,000 children are born each year at risk for adverse neurodevelopmental effects due to in utero exposure to methylmercury." According to the report, this means "an increase in the number of children who have to struggle to keep up in school and who might require remedial classes or special education."
The committee also reported that, in adults, lower levels of methylmercury than those associated with neurological damage can still contribute to heart disease and impair the cardiovascular system's ability to control blood pressure and heart rate.
The EPA has said fish consumption provides the primary pathway for methylmercury to enter the human population. But not all fish contain the toxin. It is most concentrated in fish at the top of the food chain. In freshwater, that means fish such as bass, gar and northern pike. In saltwater, the most voracious predatory fish seem to have the worst mercury levels, scientists agree. That includes the fish sent for testing by the Register, and dozens of species such as king and Spanish mackerel, sharks, swordfish and speckled trout.
Unfortunately, many of the predatory fish are among the most popular species with consumers. Compounding the problem, scientists warn, is the age and size of the fish favored by commercial processors. Scientists say older, larger fish tend to have higher mercury levels, primarily because they've had more time to accumulate the methylmercury.
An informal survey by the Register of Gulf-area seafood wholesalers, grocery stores and restaurants found that restaurants and grocery stores tend to buy the largest fish they can because the bigger fish yield more dinner-sized servings per pound than smaller fish. Moore said this buying practice increases the average consumer's exposure to methylmercury.
Scientists with the EPA, the National Marine Fisheries Service and state health departments say the high methylmercury levels in king mackerel over the last several years should have served as a warning to federal food regulators that many other Gulf species likely would have similar amounts of the toxic compound in their flesh. These and other fish prey on the same smaller fish and swim in the same offshore waters as king mackerel.
"These large, long-lived apex predators are the fish that are going to have a mercury problem," said Tom Atkeson, the mercury coordinator for the Florida Department of Environmental Quality. "Those are the species to look at."
But neither federal nor state authorities have initiated a more comprehensive testing program for other offshore species. Some government scientists acknowledge that even when fish are tested, most results are essentially useless in determining the need for advisories because too little is known about the fish sampled. Federal documents suggest the FDA relies on these incomplete results when determining which fish deserve mercury warnings.
The Register also found evidence that the agency hasn't acted on test results published in federal reports that might lead to consumption advisories on popular species such as redfish, the No. 1 target of recreational anglers in the Gulf.
The FDA - created to ensure the safety of the American food supply - said its policy is to not comment on the methylmercury issue. An FDA spokeswoman in Washington did say that the agency is not currently testing any fish for methylmercury. The agency might test 12 species at some point in the future, she said, but its scientists are having a hard time figuring out which species would warrant testing. A Register review of the test results compiled in federal reports already available to the FDA, however, indicates that several species are clear candidates for more testing.
In the majority of the thousands of existing state and federal mercury test results examined by the Register, the length and weight of the fish were not recorded at the time of testing. "Without any information on the size of the fish, those data are not nearly as valuable," said Fred Kopfler, an EPA scientist working with the Gulf of Mexico Program. "You need the size data and a lot of other information to put out a helpful and meaningful advisory."
Kopfler, who helped compile results from all mercury tests conducted in the 1990s into a database, said the consumption advisory for king mackerel illustrates the need for size data. Under that advisory, king mackerel under 33 inches are considered safe to eat while fish over 39 inches "should not be consumed."
Scientists say that without size data it's impossible to know if large numbers of undersized fish - perhaps too small to be legally kept by fishermen - may have been tested, skewing the results away from the larger fish that are more likely to have higher concentrations of mercury. In addition, there have been relatively few thorough tests conducted on several popular commercial and recreational species, even when limited testing revealed high mercury levels.
In Kopfler's mercury survey, which the FDA says it uses as a source for determining mercury levels, there are 10 test results for black grouper. Black grouper - one of several groupers popular on restaurant menus - registered an average mercury level of 1.02, about even with large king mackerel and just over the FDA's "action level" of 1.0 parts per million. The agency defines the action level as "limits at or above which FDA will take legal action to remove products from the market."
The National Marine Fisheries Service reports an average of 399,161 pounds of black grouper are sold commercially in this country each year.
Kopfler's survey contains only six red snapper results. One snapper, caught off Florida's Atlantic coast, tested at 2.8 parts per million, far beyond all health standards for consumption. One FDA information paper lists the average mercury concentration in red snapper as 0.6 parts per million, citing, among other sources, Kopfler's compilation of test results. But the agency, calculating the average mercury in red snapper based on 10 samples recorded by Kopfler and other sources, apparently left the 2.8-parts-per-million sample out of its reckoning. With this fish in the average, the species comes up at 0.8 parts per million. When mercury occurs at that level, according to the EPA, a 158-pound man should consume no more than eight ounces of that fish species in a month, and then avoid all other potentially mercury-contaminated fish for the rest of the month.
For redfish, the Register found extensive mercury testing results compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association that indicate about 40 percent of Gulf redfish between 16 and 26 inches (the legal size range to keep in Alabama) have mercury levels above the 1.5 mark - which puts them in Florida's "should not be consumed" category. But even though this research is readily available - it is found in a federal report on toxins in Gulf seafood cited by the FDA as a source for mercury information - no warnings for redfish have been issued. The six redfish caught by local anglers at Dixie Bar and tested for methylmercury by the Register averaged 1.2 parts per million.
Some federal scientists contend there is a big hole in the mercury data for saltwater fish simply because no one wants to take responsibility for testing them.
States say that many popular marine fish are not in their jurisdiction because they are found outside of state waters, which extend from three to nine miles out, depending on the state. Cobia, tuna, and amberjack are primarily found from five to several hundred miles offshore. The same goes for red snapper, grouper and several other popular saltwater gamefish.
"We would like to do the testing," said Clark Bruner with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. "If we had a million dollars and the feds said 'Go for it. Test saltwater fish with this money,' by God we'd do it."
Scientists with the EPA - a federal agency that could test in federal waters - say their program to monitor methylmercury in fish is run in cooperation with state agencies, which do the testing for them in state waters. For this reason, EPA officials say they rarely test fish from federal waters.
A spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service said that agency's primary job is making sure there are enough fish, not checking them for toxins.
All of those entities agreed with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report that states, "the FDA is responsible for identifying and controlling public health hazards associated with seafood."
Some scientists - even within the agency itself - say the FDA isn't doing its job. "They're trying to protect Joe Blow who lives in Chicago, never been fishing in his life, eats a tuna fish sandwich on Friday and a month later has swordfish," said Fred Kopfler, an EPA official based in Mississippi. "That's their philosophy and it is valid, but it's not going to protect the people who eat a lot of fish."
Scientists with the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the FDA generally does "market basket swing surveys," testing things that can be purchased at the supermarket, such as frozen fish sticks or canned tuna. But sport fish and fresh fish commonly sold in restaurants and at local fish markets are ignored.
Some critics say the FDA seems to overlook its own guidelines, even in cases where a mercury problem has been identified, such as with king mackerel. Under the action-level rules, some say, the FDA was obligated to remove king mackerel over 39 inches from the marketplace.
But instead of curtailing the sale of large kings when they were shown to routinely exceed the action level, the FDA decided to allow those large fish to be sold commercially. The FDA based its ruling on a study that showed only 10 percent to 15 percent of commercially landed king mackerel exceeded 39 inches. Thus, said the FDA, there was only a 10- to 15-percent chance that the fish would have the high level of mercury.
"To me, that ignores the whole purpose of the action level, which is to make sure you don't go over the safe level of methylmercury," Moore said. "If you eat king mackerel, you have no assurance that the fish is not over 1.0 part per million. You don't know what you are eating."
Moore said it's critical to know how much methylmercury is in the fish people are eating. While a single serving of king mackerel with a mercury level of 0.8 parts per million may not pose a great danger, two servings would put the consumer well over the safe level, he said. Moore pointed out that a survey of commercially caught king mackerel shows that about half the fish had mercury levels of 0.8 parts per million or higher.
Government records indicate that swordfish, shark and tilefish - all available in seafood markets all over the country - also routinely exceed the action level.
But even if the federal agencies start a more vigorous testing program, and enforce the action-level rule, the situation could still be clouded by an interagency dispute between the EPA and the FDA. The agencies take radically divergent positions on methylmercury exposure.
The FDA tells consumers they can consume four times as much of the toxic compound as the EPA believes safe. The National Academy of Sciences, a federally sponsored roundtable of prominent scientists, recently sided with the EPA, saying its more conservative standards were scientifically justifiable for protecting human health.
There are some who question why the federal agencies charged with protecting the public's health seem reluctant to test for mercury in the seafood supply. Moore said the answer is obvious, and troubling. "If you don't ask the question, you aren't going to find answers you don't want to deal with," he said.
Publicity about mercury contamination not only threatens the multibillion-dollar seafood and recreational fishing industries, he said, it also raises concerns about the primary source of airborne mercury: the coal-fired power plants that supply much of the nation's electricity.
In December 2000, the EPA wrote that the mercury emissions are "significant hazards to public health and must be reduced." In a 1997 study, the agency found the amount of mercury in the environment had increased by 200 to 500 percent since 1890.
"This is one of the most serious environmental problems facing this country," Moore said. "I don't think the federal government sees a reasonable way to deal with it, so we're acting like ostriches, sticking our heads in the sand."
This is only an abstract. See the full article(s) at:
(07/22/2001) Mobile Register: Mercury levels in many Gulf fish don't meet federal safety standards.
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