Fear of eating fish

By: David Martosko
Newspaper: News-Journal

As director of research, Center for Consumer Freedom, I know it's true that residents of a Japanese town experienced mercury poisoning from fish they ate in the 1960s. But this is the only such scientifically documented case. There is absolutely none in the medical literature stemming from the United States.

More telling, the Japanese incident resulted from an industrial mercury spill, not ordinary biochemical processes. People were exposed at levels dozens of times higher than anything American consumers experience.

It's a scientific near-impossibility for a pregnant woman to damage a growing fetus by eating fish. The mercury levels simply aren't high enough. But it is sad that millions of women are denying their unborn children the needed benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids because they fear the fish counter.