Oceana | Protecting the World's Oceans

We need your help again to get more grocery stores to post signs with the government advice on mercury in fish at their seafood counters.  The Food Marketing Institute has released a new flyer on seafood that only includes parts of the Food and Drug Administration mercury advice and could easily mislead consumers into thinking that it’s all there.

Here are some of the problems with the flyer that Oceana has asked the Food Marketing Institute to fix.

• It leaves out the fact that all women who may become pregnant, not just women who are already pregnant, should be careful about their fish consumption.
• It makes subtle but profound changes to the FDA advice, like changing “Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury” to “Eat 12 oz. of seafood every week (2-3 meals)”
• It leaves out FDA’s recommendation of smaller seafood portions for young children
• It implies that canned white tuna is among the low-mercury fish and that sensitive populations can eat it up to 3 times a week, whereas the FDA advises that they eat only 1 average meal of albacore tuna and tuna steaks

Many consumers are already confused enough about how to avoid health effects from mercury in seafood.  They don’t need fishy advice from the fishing industry posted at their seafood counter to confuse them further. 

Especially since you were one of the 5,000 people who signed our first petition to the Food Marketing Institute, we need your help now.  One petition doesn't always make enough waves to get the job done so we need to keep the pressure on. Please email Leslie Sarasin, President and CEO of FMI!