Unsubstantiated claims made by unqualified parties are no substitute for sound science.
Last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council published fake news. While the FDA, EPA, scientists, and nutritionists are all calling for Americans to eat more seafood – including canned tuna – the NRDC is doing just the opposite. A post on keeping kid-friendly food in the kitchen includes a warning from NRDC’s Miriam Rotkin-Ellman that canned tuna is not safe for children. The NRDC’s entire argument is an unsourced claim that there is a “documented case” of a child getting mercury poisoning from eating tuna sandwiches every day
Meanwhile, the empirical record is clear. There has never been an instance of mercury poisoning from normal commercial seafood consumption recorded in any American medical journal.
NRDC’s failure to improperly source this claim is particularly egregious because it exacerbates a public health crisis.
The organization’s recommendation that parents steer clear of tuna contradicts the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which urge consumers to eat more fish and recommends tuna as a healthy option. Moreover, studies have found that insufficient seafood consumption is to blame for nearly 84,000 preventable deaths each year, and that seafood consumption helps ensure brain and eye development in children. In fact, A long-term study showed that children whose mothers had reduced their seafood intake during pregnancy had appreciably lower IQs. Those children missed out on key nutrients like Omega-3 fatty acids –which every major health organization says are essential for healthy brain development.
The NRDC claims to be committed to using the combined expertise of lawyers, scientists, and policy experts to make the world a better place, but pieces like this suggest they’re more committed to activism than science. If they’re at all serious about accurately informing their readers, they need to immediately remove fake news from their website & commit to publishing analysis grounded in sound scientific inquiry.
