Following government guidelines for fish consumption could expose more than one it four pregnant women to mercury levels that could damage the health of their developing fetus, according to a report released by MontPIRG last spring.

The report, "Brain Food: What Women Should Know About Mercury Contamination of Fish," looked at widespread mercury contamination in fish species caught commercially and for sport.  The report detailed inadequate state and federal government warnings on fish consumption and criticized lack of sufficient data on the health impacts of mercury.

Cause for Concern
"Pollution has caused an important part of our diet to pose a serious threat to our children's health," said MontPIRG's Jeremiah Baumann.  "the government is not even warning us or tracking the impacts on our health."

Released into the air in large quantities by coal-fired power plants and incinerators,  mercury s a neurotoxin linked to developmental delays and cognitive defects at low exposure levels.  When emitted by industrial lakes, rivers, and oceans, where it accumulates in fish.  Data on mercury exposure and related diseases such as learning disabilities is extremely limited because the federal government currently has no program for tracking chronic health conditions and related environmental exposures.

Federal Miscalculations
The Food and Drug Administration advises pregnant women and women considering pregnancy to only eat up to 12 ounces of fish per week, and to entirely avoid swordfish, shark, tilefish, and king mackerel.  However, this advice is based on calculations intended to protect a 150-pound male.  Half of women weigh less, and a developing fetus is much more sensitive to health impacts of mercury than a grown man.

MontPIRG and the Environmental Working Group combined data from seven federal databases to look at fish contamination levels and used computer modeling to incorporate the real-world chemical and physical variability among women eating contaminated fish.

The analysis found that if all women followed FDA and fish consumption advice, more than one million women would have a blood mercury level above the National Academy of Sciences' level of concern for at least 30 days of their pregnancy.  About 20,000 women each year would have elevated blood mercury levels for the entire nine months of their pregnancy.

"Unfortunately, the government's advice to pregnant women is not grounded in the real world," said Baumann.

State Advisories Confusing & Inadequate
The report also examined the system used by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) to advise residents on how to limit consumption of sport fish from local bodies of water.  The advisories issued by the state are confusing and inadequately protective of health of a growing fetus or child.

MontPIRG commended DPHHS for issuing consumption advisories for sensitive populations at the lowest detectable level of mercury contamination, but urged the state to go further and issue advisories recommending that sensitive populations avoid fish consumption completely when levels rise above .05 part per million.  MontPIRG has urged the state to issue one clear and simple guideline for consumption of sport fish regardless of location or species or size of fish.

A Call to Decision Makers
"In order to protect the health of a growing fetus, mothers-to-be have to know which fish are and are not safe to eat," said Baumann.  "At the same time, our decision-makers should take protective actions by tracking the impact of pollutants like mercury on public health.  If doctors, public health officials, and policy makers are going to protect us from mercury pollution, they have to be armed with enough information."

in order to reduce the long-term health threat of mercury exposure, MontPIRG is working in Congress to pass legislation reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and to establish a statewide chronic disease health tracking system .