Thursday, March 23, 2006
About Mercury in Fish
We all know, or should know by now, that fish contain mercury. The concentrations vary according to the diet of the fish and where they are caught. California has a law that requires that fish offered for sale be labeled to indicate the concentration of mercury. However, the federal agency that watches out for the safety of the food we eat, the Food and Drug Administration, has decided to preempt the California labeling law and impose its own much less restrictive mercury labeling rule.
A few days ago the Los Angeles Times published an editorial criticizing the action of the FDA regarding the labeling of mercury content in fish. Today (March 23) representatives of the Sierra Club have a letter to the editor of the times in support of the State’s labeling requirement. A representative of the Center for Consumer Freedom has a letter defending the FDA’s action. The letter complains that California’s labels have the result that “Risk-wary Californians thus eat less fish and miss out on the health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids, which can prevent strokes, heart disease and premature births.”
We Californians, along with everyone else, are asked to accept the risk of mercury poisoning to avoid the risk of “strokes, heart disease and premature births.”
A careful reading of the letter showed that the writer represents the Center for Consumer Freedom. I went to Google to look up the organization and discovered this assessment from Sourcewatch:
I confess to being an old Democrat, an old Progressive, an old Liberal. I came of age at a time when we looked to the federal government to protect us from the depredations of unscrupulous business firms. Now these selfish businessmen have taken over the federal government. Environmental protection laws are gutted to transfer decisions about logging and oil drilling and mining and the like to local officials who “know better than a federal bureaucracy” how to take care of their environment. Similar arguments are presented in favor of repealing laws to protect endangered species. However, in the case of California, the federal government is more qualified than State residents to specify warnings about the presence of mercury in fish.
There is no logic here. It depends on whose ox is gored.
A few days ago the Los Angeles Times published an editorial criticizing the action of the FDA regarding the labeling of mercury content in fish. Today (March 23) representatives of the Sierra Club have a letter to the editor of the times in support of the State’s labeling requirement. A representative of the Center for Consumer Freedom has a letter defending the FDA’s action. The letter complains that California’s labels have the result that “Risk-wary Californians thus eat less fish and miss out on the health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids, which can prevent strokes, heart disease and premature births.”
We Californians, along with everyone else, are asked to accept the risk of mercury poisoning to avoid the risk of “strokes, heart disease and premature births.”
A careful reading of the letter showed that the writer represents the Center for Consumer Freedom. I went to Google to look up the organization and discovered this assessment from Sourcewatch:
The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) (formerly called the "Guest Choice Network") is a front group for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries. It runs media campaigns which oppose the efforts of scientists, doctors, health advocates, environmentalists and groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, calling them "the Nanny Culture -- the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, anti-meat activists, and meddling bureaucrats who 'know what's best for you.' "
I confess to being an old Democrat, an old Progressive, an old Liberal. I came of age at a time when we looked to the federal government to protect us from the depredations of unscrupulous business firms. Now these selfish businessmen have taken over the federal government. Environmental protection laws are gutted to transfer decisions about logging and oil drilling and mining and the like to local officials who “know better than a federal bureaucracy” how to take care of their environment. Similar arguments are presented in favor of repealing laws to protect endangered species. However, in the case of California, the federal government is more qualified than State residents to specify warnings about the presence of mercury in fish.
There is no logic here. It depends on whose ox is gored.
