FDA confirms current stand on mercury in fish

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a statement confirming that it has not issued a new advisory on methylmercury consumption, despite recent media reports suggesting otherwise.

The controversy was raised after a report in a recent issue of JAMA (Vol. 289 No. 13, April 2, 2003) which found that 8 per cent of women studied by researchers had blood levels of mercury higher than the US Environmental Protection Agency's recommended reference dose. This prompted confusion in media reports over the maximum levels of mercury exposure followed by FDA, with some suggesting the agency had lowered the limits.

The FDA said its current advisory regarding methylmercury and fish consumption, issued March 2001, still stands. The advisory recommends that pregnant women and women of childbearing age who may become pregnant not eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish. The agency also recommends that nursing mothers and young children do not eat these four varieties of fish because of the relatively high levels of methylmercury they may contain.

Pregnant women are however able to safely eat 12 ounces of a variety of other kinds of cooked fish each week, according to the advisory.

The FDA said that women following its advice would generally be below the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) reference dose for methylmercury. It received a number of recommendations from its Food Advisory Committee last summer on how to improve this advisory and said it will continue to work closely with EPA to deal with methylmercury in fish.

A recent study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine​, found that the mercury content in certain fish from environmentally contaminated areas may counteract the health benefits from some of the fatty acids present in fish. The study authors even suggested that warnings on mercury exposure should not be confined to high-risk groups like pregnant women, or those of child-bearing age.