I've been thinking about fish a lot lately. What prompted me to do this cartoon was hearing a news story that included a new study that found some pregnant women in central Brooklyn, N.Y. had enough mercury in their systems to land in the EPA's warning zone. The article says, "the toxic metal most likely comes from eating too much of certain kinds of fish, like tuna and shark. Larger fish typically have higher mercury content, because they're higher up in the food chain."
As I thought about it, fish have played an important role in my life. Growing up, maintaining a tropical fish tank was a bonding activity I had with my father. We even had giant goldfish in a pond in our backyard. I spent summers with my family on the Jersey shore, and that's where I learned to fish, usually only catching blowfish. Many a lonely afternoon was spent "sitting on the dock of the bay," pondering the fish, and my fate. Later, I went on an outdoorsy-type program and had to fish for my dinner. I have now given up red meat, but I still eat fish (which is not so easy-there are even seafood apps for choosing what fish to eat). Little did I know, as a young girl, how complicated such a simple thing as fish would become.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION WITH MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE!
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Health problems associated with mercury in commercial fish are theoretical, and highly unlikely unless your weekly intake of Swordfish is more than: 6 ounces/week.
In fact, the FDA and EPA recommend that children under 7, women of childbearing age and pregnant women avoid eating these fish altogether. Quote "Do not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury." The adverse health effects range from fetal development to neurological disorders and a host of other symptoms associated with mercury toxicity.
Using the calculator at gotmercury.org gives a dose of nearly 13 times higher than the recommended exposure for a child of the same weight eating the same portion of swordfish. The HowMuch Fish calculator uses a reference dose without the safety factor as opposed to the EPA's 0.5 ppm mercury action level and is giving irresponsible even dangerous guidance. Although fish can be healthy, eating too much of the wrong fish can be placing us at serious risk to an avoidable illness. Got Mercury recommend avoiding fish like tuna, shark and swordfish that are high in mercury and gill netted or longlined with serious casualties to other species.