Scientists yesterday warned pregnant women to cut their consumption of canned tuna fish, and recommended that the FDA issue stricter warnings about the mercury-tainted product.
An estimated 60,000 women nationwide put their fetuses at risk of brain damage every year by eating too much canned tuna, according to the panel of scientists.
“We’re trying to balance off the positive virtues of fish, including tuna fish, against possibilities of harm, and that’s a hard decision to make,” said the panel’s chairman, Dr. Sanford Miller.
The Food and Drug Administration last reviewed the issue in March and declined to revise the mercury standards for seafood.
The agency’s critics have accused it of buckling under pressure from the fishing industry. They cite the standards of the National Academy of Sciences and the Environmental Protection Administration – which are eight times more stringent than the one-part-per-million FDA standard.
Mercury exposure can affect a child’s attention span, motor skills, language, visual and verbal memory.
The FDA previously said that pregnant women should stay away from four other fish that often have high quantities of mercury: shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish.