Two of the world’s top experts on brain and neurological development have joined 125 others in calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revise its advice on fish consumption and pregnancy — last updated in 2004 — because it is out of date and may be “inadvertently causing harm.”
An open letter from professors Thomas Brenna of Cornell University and Michael Crawford of London Metropolitan University was delivered to FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg in May when the petition was posted online.
“[A] consistent stream of new publications and international scientific evaluations has persuaded us that this advice has become outdated and that it may be inadvertently causing harm, inconsistent with your public health mission,” the letter stated. “We commend FDA for its history of willingness to modify that advice when warranted by new information. The time for the next update has come.”
In a few weeks the online petition has garnered 125 signatures, including scientists from Cornell, Oxford, Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The list also includes scientists from Denmark, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and Iceland.
“This petition includes a who’s who of independent researchers,” said Jennifer McGuire, MS RD, director of nutrition communications for the National Fisheries Institute. “They all know that over the past six years a wealth of science has been produced that shows the real risk to pregnant women and unborn children is in not eating enough fish.”
According to Brenna and Crawford, science had not advanced enough by 2004 to properly consider the full health benefits of eating fish.
“It is no longer consistent with the recommendation to limit consumption of all fish to a maximum of 12 ounces per week for pregnant and lactating women and women who may become pregnant,” according to the letter.
“There is persuasive new evidence that consumption of more than 12 ounces per week of most marketplace species will actually improve fetal neurodevelopment. This improvement occurs in spite of methyl-mercury in most, if not all fish.”
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