Questioning Sushi Safety

The FDA and EPA already warn against pregnant women and children eating canned tuna because of high mercury levels, but The New York Times has discovered even more mercury in a random selection of fresh sushi tuna. And it’s not just those swanky city folk who are at risk. According to one marine scientist: “Mercury levels in bluefin [tuna] are likely to be very high regardless of location [of purchase].”

New York Times:

Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.

“No one should eat a meal of tuna with mercury levels like those found in the restaurant samples more than about once every three weeks,” said Dr. Michael Gochfeld, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

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