Talking Tuna - How much sushi and albacore is too much? Be careful who you ask. By Amanda Schaffer

Talking Tuna - How much sushi and albacore is too much? Be careful who you ask. By Amanda Schaffer

A very informative article on how much we should be worrying about the mercury in fish! SHort version? we really do not know how dangerous (or safe) it is.

"The FDA justifies these loosey-goosey guidelines by painting the EPA's traditional approach to exposure limits as overly cautious. In establishing the mercury reference dose in 2001, the EPA looked at studies of adverse effects of exposure in the Faroe Islands, the Seychelles Islands, and New Zealand, and applied some standard statistical calculations. Then the agency built in an uncertainty factor to account for the reality that information is incomplete, some people are more sensitive to mercury than others, and so forth. All this is customary practice. Still, David Acheson, head of the FDA's Office of Food Safety, says that the EPA's threshold should be treated not as a "bright line" but as a sort of general guide. (Translation: Forget the mercury calculator.)"