Dispelling myths about seafood consumption
When I opined about the confusion caused by the 2004 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advice to pregnant women about eating seafood in The Hill’s Congress Blog back in February (Seafood should be next up on FDA plate), I had no way of knowing that my points would be so readily illustrated in the same space little more than a year later (Pollution no match for motherly love).
I commend Jessica Capshaw for championing a cleaner, safer world for this generation and the next. Cleaning up coal burning power plants is an important mission, and I support the clean air initiatives, but the information presented about seafood contradicts the current advice given to pregnant women by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
The current guidelines were adopted after a committee of scientists evaluated the safety of eating seafood during pregnancy and breastfeeding and recommended that pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers eat 8 to 12 ounces (2 servings) of a variety of fish per week, which can include up to 6 ounces of albacore (white) tuna.
There are just four rarely-eaten types of fish for this population to avoid (shark, king mackerel, swordfish and tilefish) because of methyl mercury. The nutrition we get in the womb can affect us all our lives and science shows that eating fish during pregnancy boosts brain and eye development in babies. But the amount of seafood pregnant women eat remains woefully low during and even after baby is born. Unclear and outdated advice from the FDA/EPA about eating seafood has created confusion among pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, which can have unintended consequences for babies’ brain development.
Fish and seafood is the major dietary source of omega-3 DHA, an essential nutrient required by the brain as it grows. Misinformation about eating seafood has worked its way into everything from opinion columns to casual conversations and frightened large numbers of pregnant women from eating a healthy food which contributes to babies’ optimal growth and development.
It is time for accurate science-based messages that tell Americans what the World Health Organization and the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization have been saying; the danger isn’t in eating too much seafood, it’s in not eating enough. It’s a message that’s spelled out in a new video from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in which Dr. Emily Oken of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Institute says, “when we conducted…focus groups with pregnant women they followed the precautionary principle often; if there’s any risk I’d rather be safe than sorry. But not recognizing, because no one had told them, that there was risk to eating no fish as well.”
The rhetoric and the advice about eating seafood has not caught up with the science in this country and now does far more harm than good. Unfortunately, this is not a completely unusual scenario. Concerned parents around the world began avoiding vaccines after it was reported that the life saving shots were causing autism. Science thoroughly discredited such proclamations, but not before a resurgence in preventable diseases. There is no doubt that we owe the public carefully thought out, scientifically based messages that they can use to make informed decisions about nutrition and health. We eagerly await updated advice about seafood and nutrition during pregnancy and breastfeeding, which members of congress encouraged FDA to adopt last year.
Dr. Harris, RD, is a professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University and a member of the Perinatal Nutrition Working Group, a program of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition.
Fish & Seafood with Bill & Sheila
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