FDA Response about Methylmercury in Fish Concerns Leahy and Harkin

April 25, 2000

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) believe a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) response to a congressional inquiry about methylmercury in seafood is troubling news for the health of all Americans, especially children and pregnant women.

Leahy and Harkin expressed concern to FDA in a letter last October that the Administration was not doing enough to monitor and enforce methylmercury levels in commercial fish. The senators pointed out to FDA that an EPA report to Congress in 1997 estimated that seven million women and children are currently at risk of mercury exposure due to consumption of contaminated fish.

"The FDA response to our inquiry confirms our worst fears." said Leahy, "FDA stopped monitoring mercury levels in domestically-caught swordfish, shark and tuna in 1998. Yet in one sampling, three of the four fish tested in 1997 had levels exceeding FDA's human health standard for mercury. Those results argue strongly for continued monitoring to protect our children." "Ignoring the problem certainly won't make it go away or prevent the potential damage to human health from methylmercury in seafood. I am at a loss to understand FDA's stopping its mercury monitoring in 1998," Harkin said.

Methylmercury is the most toxic form of mercury and can cause severe neurological damage, especially in a developing fetus. Currently, over 150 tons of mercury are pumped into the atmosphere each year by coal-fired power plants, waste incinerators, and other air toxic sources. Raining into national waterways and accumulating in the tissues of aquatic organisms, unregulated mercury emissions are now the target of several pieces of legislation in Congress. These include Leahy's Omnibus Mercury Emissions Reduction Act of 1999 (S. 673) and his Clean Power Plant and Modernization Act of 1999 (S. 1949).

An independent report on the FDA's monitoring and enforcement activity ("The One that Got Away: FDA Fails to Protect the Public from High Mercury Levels in Seafood") by the Mercury Policy Project advocacy group will be released on April 25. A report by the National Academy of Sciences updating mercury "action levels," or the levels of mercury considered unsafe for human consumption, is due to Congress early this summer. The EPA action level is currently 0.1 part per million (ppm) while FDA has set its action level ten times higher, at 1.0 ppm.

Office of Sen. Patrick Leahy CONTACT: David Carle, 202-224-3693