Hightower has published a survey of her patients in the Journal Environmental Health Perspectives and she often speaks about her original clinical interest in determining "whether the various symptoms in my patients were linked to mercury in their bodies." She coins and exploits scientifically unproven diagnosis like "Fish Fog" to explain myriad maladies including headaches and fatigue attributable to literally thousands of other conditions.
Her most often referred to published, peer-reviewed piece of work fails to establish the very connection between eating fish and the health problems she lectures about. Hightower even writes in her own book about the difficulty in proving a cause and effect and about her own colleagues continued skepticism. Hightower's references to the supposed negative health effects of eating commercial seafood are anecdotal, contrasted with large, peer reviewed studies that demonstrate the proven health benefits of eating fish.
