Groups Criticize a Report On Sushi-Grade Tuna's Safety

Consumer advocates and representatives of the seafood industry are disputing a newspaper report on the safety of sushi-grade tuna, saying the New York Times misinterpreted government standards.

Critics of yesterday's article, including the Center for Consumer Freedom and the National Fisheries Institute, said the Times neglected to inform readers that certain standards set by the government have built-in safety cushions. The groups also said the report, which appeared on the first page of the paper, "mistakenly" claimed that consumers eating six pieces of sushi each week would reach the Environmental Protection Agency's "reference dose," a measure of how much of a toxic substance a person can safely consume. The groups said the reference dose is meant to identify levels that are not likely to pose a risk to a person's health during their lifetime.

"Consumers are being scared away from what is essentially a health food," the Center for Consumer Freedom's research director, David Martosko, said. The group has asked the newspaper to retract the article.

A call to the Times press office was not immediately returned.

The Food and Drug Administration's "action level" for mercury, or the level at which it can remove fish from stores and restaurants, is 1 part per million. The Times article, based on independent testing conducted for the newspaper, said tuna sushi purchased at 20 Manhattan restaurants and stores contained so much mercury that a regular diet of the fish would exceed levels deemed acceptable by the EPA, and that sushi from five stores exceeded the FDA's action level.

Mr. Martosko, who called the article "sensationalist" and "sloppy," said it neglected to inform readers that the FDA's action level is 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects. According to information on the FDA's Web site, that level was intentionally set low to afford "greater protection" for consumers.

"Assuming that the numbers reported are accurate, I don't see how anyone is put at any risk," the associate director of the American Council on Science and Health, Jeff Stier, wrote in an e-mail message.

The seafood trade association, meanwhile, said it received calls from consumers and supermarket owners who expressed concern about the report. "A story like this takes on a life of its own," the vice president of the National Fisheries Institute, Mary Anne Hansan, said.

Mercury levels found in sushi have made other headlines in New York City in recent months.

In July, the city's health department reported that one in four New Yorkers has elevated blood mercury levels. Yesterday, the agency issued the following statement, which a spokeswoman said was based on its own study: "No one needs to stop eating fish, but some people may need to change the type and amount they eat." The department recommends that pregnant or breast-feeding women and young children avoid fish with high levels of mercury. In August, a San Francisco-based environmental group, GotMercury.org, reported elevated levels in eight of New York City's top sushi restaurants. Yesterday, the group stood by the Times article. "It accurately portrays the prevalence of mercury in our nation's premiere restaurants," an environmental health analyst for the group, Caryn Mandelbaum, said.