The Bluefin tuna stock in the Mediterranean is not in good shape and those responsible for managing it have done a poor job. The Bluefin is a majestic fish that is the gold standard for sushi in Japan and its sustainability story is currently a sad one. Something needs to be done.
But is that something dumping five tons of fish heads in front of the agriculture ministry building in Paris? Well... Greenpeace thinks so.
A quick review of the Safe Harbor Certified Seafood Web site reveals an attack on canned tuna that employs overt exaggeration and misinformation.
It begs the question-how low is Safe Harbor willing to go to push its product? It's a product that is marketed as one designed to help protect consumers, but is apparently being promoted with half truths and innuendo rather than ground truth science and fact.
It wasn't that long ago that NFI went head-to-head with the New York Times over its misuse of science and distortion of data in reporting about seafood.
Dr. Jane Hightower is a San Francisco physician who has been described in media reports as someone who's "made something of a cottage industry" out of anecdotally linking various and sometimes vague symptoms of illness to elevated mercury levels, that she suggests come from eating seafood.
Before she was admonished by the New York Times public editor for the failures of her now discredited story about mercury in sushi tuna, Marion Burros was sleuthing around Gotham spiriting fish samples off to the lab for toxicology tests.
A few weeks ago, we shared a preview of a Mother Jones article about Tuna and Mercury. Now, Mother Jones made the entire article available via the Web.
When we deliver the real facts about mercury in fish, backed up by the latest science, it appears groups like Oceana don't like it too much. Case in point; back on September 17th the Fort Myers News Press published an opinion column submitted by NFI.
So it looks like the Chicago Tribune is completely satisfied that Michael Hawthorne's latest story about mercury in seafood meets its high journalism standards, an interesting development given the paper's once-proud lineage.
