从mit转来的

Fish Advisories

FDA

There are three ways that the FDA methylmercury health advisory must be
improved:

1. The list of fish to avoid during pregnancy must be expanded.

By advising against the consumption of just four types of fish, FDA allows
heavy consumption of many fish that have unacceptably high methylmercury
levels. To protect women and their babies from methylmercury, the FDA must add
the following species to the list of seafood that should not be eaten by
pregnant women, nursing women, and women considering pregnancy:

Tuna steaks
Sea bass
Oysters (Gulf of Mexico)
Marlin
Halibut
Pike
Walleye
White croaker
Largemouth bass

While not every serving of any of these fish is contaminated with dangerous
levels of methylmercury, the odds are greater than one in 1,000 that
consumption of a single meal of these fish will expose the fetus to a
potentially hazardous amount of methylmercury for longer than 30 days.

2. FDA's recommendation that pregnant women eat 12 ounces a week of any fish (
except the four that are not allowed) must be radically revised.

Ten percent of American women enter pregnancy with elevated methylmercury
levels, and current FDA safeguards, which are based on average exposures, do
almost nothing to protect these high exposure pregnancies. If these women
follow FDA's advice of 12 ounces of any fish a week, they could easily expose
their fetuses to a level of methylmercury that presents a real risk of adverse
neurological effects. To protect women and children, FDA must restrict
consumption of the following fish to no more than one meal per month, for all
species combined:

Canned tuna
Mahi mahi
Blue mussels
Eastern oyster
Cod
Pollock
Salmon from the Great Lakes
Blue crab from the Gulf of Mexico
Channel catfish (wild)
Lake whitefish

3. Women who want to eat fish during pregnancy must have information about
which species are least contaminated with methylmercury. Pregnant women have a
right to this information, and FDA has a duty to provide it. In addition to
strengthening restrictions on fish consumption by pregnant women, FDA should
promote the following fish as safe options for pregnant women:

Trout (farmed)
Catfish (farmed)
Shrimp * (see sidebar)
Fish Sticks
Flounder (summer)
Salmon (wild Pacific)
Croaker
Blue crab (mid Atlantic)
Haddock