September 7, 2008

Why mercury in canned tuna is still legal

Hopefully you or your mother aren’t eating tuna everyday like a former co-worker of mine – John – did for breakfast. Sure, he lost lots of weight, and his high protein diet was helping that, but a high canned tuna diet has other side effects too. Symptoms of mercurial poisoning include, but are not limited to:
canned tuna out the can on some lettuce

  • loss of hair,
  • heart fluttering,
  • heart, nervous system, and kidney damage,
  • and more.

I haven’t ran into John in a couple of years, but hopefully everything is going good for him. :-)

I’ve reported on seafood mercury levels in this blog before. As a matter of fact, my earlier post Seafood Mercury Levels Make Headlines quotes the same High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi article that MotherJones just mentioned, so it’s certainly nothing new on the health front, but it is one that people need to be aware of.

The problem is, with canned tuna providing the highest source of mercury in the American diet, people need to wake up and smell the tuna – without the mercury in it! Oh, and say thanks to the FDA for looking out for us.

It’s almost expected nowadays to hear that Bumble Bee, StarKist, and Tri-Union (parent company of Chicken of the Sea) are doing all they can to quiet their unhealthy ways, but when the FDA, the very agency of the U.S. government put in place to protect us, is out there reputedly taking payoffs from company executives, then we have a serious health issue here in America.


2 responses to 'Why mercury in canned tuna is still legal'

  1. F Lindbergh - November 5th, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    2012 on the Bluefin Tuna seems a bit early to me from what I have been reading. The Mercury level in canned Tuna is worrisome and I am an avid Tuna eater at least 4 to 5 times a week. The other seafood I eat I catch so I am a bit concerned.

  2. Charleston Native - November 5th, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    Ah, you must be referring to Bluefin tuna extinct by 2012, which quotes info from the WWF; can you remember where you heard differently?


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