A Seal of Disapproval for Good Housekeeping (Part II)

Things have gotten rather quiet over at Good Housekeeping so we thought we'd ping 'em one more time. Keep in mind this is a publication that brags on its website that it "exercises strict editorial judgment."

September 29, 2010

Ms. Sarah Scrymser

Managing Editor

Good Housekeeping

300 West 57th Street

29th Floor

New York, NY 10019

VIA Email

Dear Ms. Scrymser,

Earlier this month, we wrote to Samantha Cassetty, Director of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute, concerning an article that appeared in the September 2010 issue (“Is Your Tuna Toxic,” September 2010).  In short, we were disappointed that Good Housekeeping chose to publish only one of the study’s two key findings.  In doing so, your story neglected to mention the standards on mercury and seafood consumption enforced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the regulatory body that has actual jurisdiction over commercial seafood.

Consumers should not be concerned with or by the University of Nevada-Las Vegas study referenced in the article for the following reasons:

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates mercury levels in sport-caught fish found in lakes, streams and other internal waterways where the EPA has jurisdiction; the agency does not oversee the commercially caught fish consumers find on their grocers’ shelves, freezers or seafood counters. Therefore, applying the EPA’s limit of 0.5 parts per million (ppm) of mercury to canned tuna is flat out wrong and misleading. Canned tuna continues to be a safe and healthy source of lean protein packed with heart-healthy omega-3's.

• The FDA has jurisdictional oversight of commercially caught and sold seafood. The primary source of methylmercury in this type of seafood is the naturally occurring phenomena of underwater volcanic activity; it is not an environmental pollutant emitted from coal burning factories. As such, the FDA’s methylmercury threshold is 1.0 ppm.

• The UNLV study reported that “5 percent exceeded 1.0 ppm, the safety level set by the FDA for commercially sold fish.” If you were trying to frighten your subscribers, it’s understandable that this de minimis outcome would not generate the desired effect. Not to mention that the level as set by FDA contains a 1,000% safety factor designed to “limit consumers’ methyl mercury exposure to levels 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects.”

Given that Ms. Cassetty failed to respond to our initial message, we are again requesting an explanation as to how this type of reporting made its way into the pages of Good Housekeeping.  In the meantime, NFI intends to continue to challenge your reporting, just as we did when we were contacted recently by KSD-TV in San Diego.

Sincerely,

Gavin Gibbons

National Fisheries Institute

CC:      Rosemary Ellis, Editor in Chief