The mercury-warning-signs-on-seafood crowd has pulled a David Hasselhoff.
Monday's edition of the Bradenton Herald in Bradenton, Florida offers us evidence educated health professionals are getting the message that inflated concerns about mercury in seafood have been over-stated for years and are now passing along word that the latest science shows the greatest risk, when it comes to seafood, is not eating enough.
It would appear from published reports that our new President is committed to working to reduce or even eliminate mercury pollution. This is good news. An aggressive, science-based approach to cleaning up the environment is something everyone welcomes.
I don't know if any of you saw this misguided mess on U.S. News and World Report's site, but a blog called Fresh Greens claims to be looking out for consumers by naming 10 risky foods. Unfortunately she didn't risk doing much research:
In my last entry about the obvious problems found in a recent Associated Press article I noted that I had actually been fairly pleased with the recent state of reporting on seafood. As an example I noted that Reuters had editorially mismanaged a story about Alaska pollock a few months ago but after some prodding, reviewed their own work and corrected the record.
I must first say I have been pleased with the state of reporting on seafood lately. Not because I agree with it all but because when charged with reporting the facts, free of surreptitious agendas, the media has been doing a pretty god job lately.
No the Ventura County Star isn't the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal-but it still has standards... or should.
Take for instance its latest unsigned editorial. The 600+ word opinion piece takes an embarrassingly uneducated shot at canned tuna with the tact of a newly minted 16-year old environmental activist armed with a few quasi facts, a sandwich board and a bull horn.
It wasn't two weeks ago that I was scolding the Economist for a seafood sustainability story that relied on erroneous environmental activist data (not my opinion, mind you, just a fact.) But this week we (and by we I mean Stetson Tinkham, NFI's director of International Affairs and I - avid Economist readers) find the Economist squaring off against activists who have once again gone too far.
Let me start by saying, while I am sure he wishes it did, Michael Hawthorne's latest article on mercury has nothing to do with fish... or seafood... or even water for that matter. It has to do with corn and a study that apparently says researchers detected traces of mercury in samples of high-fructose corn syrup.
A day after the FDA released an exhaustive, peer-reviewed, draft report analyzing the state of seafood science over the past 5 years that demonstrates just how much the benefits of eating seafood outweigh any concerns about trace amounts of mercury, you might wonder why I am blogging about Jeremy Piven. There is a tie-in, trust me.
