Seafood Safety

By: David Martosko
Newspaper: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

If Northwest Fisheries Science Center scientists are concerned about the health of fish-eating consumers, they should embrace the growing evidence that fish is a health food. Period. (July 3: "Seattle scientists call for nationwide research on seafood safety").

Just three months ago, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet published a major government-funded study that should put knee-jerk fish fears to rest. Of thousands of young mothers in this research, the women who ate the most fish during their pregnancies had children with the highest IQs.

Groundbreaking research like this is not new. Last fall another major study (this one from Harvard) demonstrated that the well-documented health benefits of eating fish outweigh any hypothetical health risks.

It's natural for scientists to seek precision in their calculations, including trace measurements of contaminants in fish. But since some chemicals can now be measured in parts per trillion, the result may be a panic where none should exist. Merely measuring something doesn't make it dangerous.