Weak mercury standards compromise a generation's health

Yet another disastrous offensive against the American people:

I can't tell whether this administration is flaunting its
cynicism, its contempt for science or its conviction that when in power
you help your contributors and fry your enemies. Although how millions
of small children and unborn fetuses came to be enemies of Bush &
Co. is beyond my political or theological understanding. We are talking
about the rollback announced last week in regulating mercury pollution.
Except, of course, it wasn't announced as a rollback, it was announced
as a great step forward. This raises the always timely question, "How dumb do they think we are?" and this time the answer is "profoundly dumb,"
because it is real hard to get fooled by this one. You look at the
numbers and tell me. Mercury is a neurotoxin that damages the brains
and nervous systems of fetuses and young children, and probably affects
adults as well. It is one of the suspected, though not proven, causes
of recent increases in autism, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. It is known
to cause learning and attention disabilities and mental retardation.
Eight percent of American women of childbearing age already have
mercury in their blood above the EPA's "safe level." Mercury emissions
from power plants get into rain clouds and come down in lakes and
rivers, there poisoning fish and the people who eat them. Coal-fired
power plants are the largest source of mercury, spewing 50 tons a year
into the air, about 40 percent of the total. In December 2000, the
Environmental Protection Agency issued a finding requiring the maximum
amount of technically achievable reduction in mercury. This was
expected to result in a 90 percent mercury reduction by 2007. Instead,
the new EPA proposals downgrade mercury emissions -- particularly
mercury emissions from the utility industry -- by taking it out of the
"hazardous pollutant" category. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
Simply by implementing the laws already on the books, annual mercury
emissions from power plants could be reduced to 5 tons annually by
2007. But Bush's EPA last week introduced a new plan to cap emission at
34 tons a year by 2010 and then 15 tons by 2018. This means hundreds of
more tons of mercury discharged over the next 15 years, and that many
more children born brain-damaged. I'd really like to know if John
Graham, Bush's cost-benefit guru at the Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs, factored in the cost of special ed, health care and
caretaking for those kids. The good news is this will save the utility
industry hundreds of millions of dollars -- worth every retarded child,
eh? Besides, the coal industry contributed more than $250,000 to Bush's
last campaign, and you didn't. John Walke, clean air director of the
Natural Resource Defense Council, called it "a grotesque giveaway." The
truth is, the EPA is doing nothing about mercury pollution. The
decrease to 34 tons a year is a byproduct of new filtering requirements
for nitrogen (causes smog) and sulfur dioxide (causes acid rain), which
aren't much to write home about, either. Mike Leavitt, new head of the
EPA, defended the proposal as an emissions-trading program, like the
one that has reduced acid rain. But the Environmental Defense Fund,
which has endorsed the use of market-based, cap-and-trade systems for
reducing some pollutants, is appalled by the mercury decision and
apparently not comforted by the EPA's decision to change mercury's
classification.

And in a nicely timed bit of Administration news:

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee is
expected today to approve a dietary advisory for eating
mercury-contaminated fish that fails to adequately warn consumers,
according to NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council).
The advisory tells consumers to eat no more than 12 ounces of fish per week to avoid dangerous levels of mercury.
It also points out that some fish, particularly canned albacore tuna,
contain dangerous levels of mercury. But the advisory fails to tell
consumers which fish are the most contaminated and should be avoided.
"FDA is refusing to name names," said Linda E. Greer, Ph.D., director
of NRDC's Health and Environment Program. "It's not telling us which
fish we can eat without worry and which fish we should avoid.
...
FDA recently released test results that found canned albacore "white"
tuna has three times the mercury level in canned "light" tuna. The
levels of mercury in albacore tuna are so high that adults should eat
less than one serving a week to stay under EPA's safe dose for mercury,
says Dr. Greer. Children, she says, should not eat albacore tuna at
all.
"The Bush administration is more concerned about protecting the tuna
industry than protecting our children," charged Greer. "By withholding
the identity of key fish, the Bush FDA is hiding the most important
information from consumers."
Specifically, the FDA proposal fails to adequately inform consumers for
a number of reasons, including:

• Although the proposal states that some fish species have more
  mercury than others, it does not name the most highly contaminated fish
  besides for the four FDA identified in 2001: shark, swordfish, king
  mackerel and tile fish. It leaves out tuna, specifically canned
  albacore tuna and tuna steaks, which have very high concentrations of
  mercury. It also leaves out grouper and orange roughy, two popular fish
  dinner entrees.



• The proposal does not tell consumers how much tuna they can safely
  eat. This is critical. Canned tuna accounts for 25 percent to 35
  percent of all seafood consumption in the United States. American
  children eat more than twice as much tuna as any other fish.



• The proposal states that adults can safely eat as much as 12 ounces
  of a variety of fish per week. This advice is unscientific. If a woman
  with a typical weight of 132 pounds ate 12 ounces of canned albacore
  tuna per week, for example, she would ingest nearly three times EPA's
  safe dose, according to FDA data. If she ate just one standard 6-ounce
  can of albacore tuna a week, she would still exceed the EPA safe level
  by more than one-and-a-half times.



• The proposal states that children should eat less than 12 ounces of
  fish, but does not indicate how much less. A 22-pound toddler who eats
  only 2 ounces of albacore tuna a week would ingest nearly three times
  the EPA safe level. For an 88-pound child, 6 ounces would be twice
  EPA's safe level. By telling consumers that children should eat less
  but not exactly how much less, FDA is providing advice that is of no
  real use to consumers. Parents need to know exactly how much less
  albacore tuna their children should eat.



• The proposal tells consumers not to worry about mercury if they eat
  12 ounces or less of a variety of fish a week, without acknowledging
  that there are many combinations of fish that consumers cannot safely
  eat together during the same week, according to the agency's own data.
  FDA data tables indicate that not all combinations are safe.



• Finally, the proposal does not identify for consumers those fish
  that are low in mercury, which include salmon, shrimp, clams, tilapia,
  oysters, crawfish and sardines. The proposal does nothing to guide
  consumers to make smart choices.

While the Food and Drug Administration recently released test results
that found canned albacore "white" tuna has three times the mercury
level in canned "light" tuna, the agency is unwilling to give consumers
specific information about safe amounts of tuna -- or any other fish --
to eat. Below NRDC has provided an easy-to-use table so consumers can
make informed choices about how often they can safely eat tuna. The
table is based on FDA test results and safe levels determined by the
Environmental Protection Agency.

Posted by flow Frazao on December 17, 2003 at 06:53 AM | Permalink