Arsenic in the News, US Edition

BBC NEWS | Health | Benefits of fish ‘outweigh risks’

Dariush Mozaffarian, lead author of the study said: “Overall, for major health outcomes among adults, the benefits of eating fish greatly outweigh the risks.

“Somehow this evidence has been lost on the public.”

Concerns have been raised about chemicals found in fish from pollution.

These include mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins.

And in other news, “breathing is good for you”. Please, I can’t take this any more. The question is NOT, and NEVER WILL BE, “Is fish good for you?”. Of course it is. The question is: “What kind of fish is good for you, and whether appropriate labeling can help the consumer decide”.

At least in the US of A, which is where I have eaten the bulk of my fish, the primary source of information you can get about eating fish is on the web and for North Carolina, here. So, you’re supposed to go around with a checklist of good and bad fish in your head when you go to the grocery store. Most consumers do not have this kind of information, especially when there are so many categories to choose from. Is it fatty, or non? Is it freshwater or marine? Is it canned, fresh or frozen? Is it caught or farmed? Canned light tuna is okay, but canned albacore tuna is not, can you remember this when shopping for 30 other things at the store?

Confused enough? How about, tilefish at 3.99 a pound versus salmon at 7.99 a pound? What will you buy on a tight budget?

If you’re the average consumer, you have a minute to decide whether it’s fish for dinner, or something else, unless you’re carrying around this handy checklist in your hand/PDA (in which case you’re not the average consumer), you have two opposing thoughts in your head….

1. I know that fish is good for me, so I need to eat more fish
2. I know that certain fish is not good for me, especially if I’m pregnant/nursing/feeding kids – But I don’t know if this fish that’s on sale is on the safe list, or not.

What will you do given that you have one minute to decide, you have no information in the store, and you have no one in the store looking out for you?

And this paper wonders, and I paraphrase,

“Somehow this evidence has been lost on the public”

Labeling is important, information is power, if you’re buying fish, you want to know where it is from, what the average pollutant loadings of the fish from this area are, and what the advisory on this fish is, so you can make an informed choice in the one minute that you have. This has been widely researched, and the information is easily available (on the web, where you don’t shop for groceries). Is it too much to ask for a list to be posted wherever fish is sold? I guess it “hurts business”.

Personal responsibilty is accepted, but if you do not give people the tools to make informed choices, it’s just a cynical ploy to shift blame, shift burden, and shift risk.

This paper deserves to be read in full, so here’s the abstract. Needless to say, the study, funded in full by tax payer money through the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, is behind a subscription wall.

Fish Intake, Contaminants, and Human Health

Evaluating the Risks and the Benefits

Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH; Eric B. Rimm, ScD

JAMA. 2006;296:1885-1899.

ABSTRACT

Context  Fish (finfish or shellfish) may have health benefits and also contain contaminants, resulting in confusion over the role of fish consumption in a healthy diet.

Evidence Acquisition  We searched MEDLINE, governmental reports, and meta-analyses, supplemented by hand reviews of references and direct investigator contacts, to identify reports published through April 2006 evaluating (1) intake of fish or fish oil and cardiovascular risk, (2) effects of methylmercury and fish oil on early neurodevelopment, (3) risks of methylmercury for cardiovascular and neurologic outcomes in adults, and (4) health risks of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls in fish. We concentrated on studies evaluating risk in humans, focusing on evidence, when available, from randomized trials and large prospective studies. When possible, meta-analyses were performed to characterize benefits and risks most precisely.

Evidence Synthesis  Modest consumption of fish (eg, 1-2 servings/wk), especially species higher in the n-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), reduces risk of coronary death by 36% (95% confidence interval, 20%-50%; P<.001) and total mortality by 17% (95% confidence interval, 0%-32%; P = .046) and may favorably affect other clinical outcomes. Intake of 250 mg/d of EPA and DHA appears sufficient for primary prevention. DHA appears beneficial for, and low-level methylmercury may adversely affect, early neurodevelopment. Women of childbearing age and nursing mothers should consume 2 seafood servings/wk, limiting intake of selected species. Health effects of low-level methylmercury in adults are not clearly established; methylmercury may modestly decrease the cardiovascular benefits of fish intake. A variety of seafood should be consumed; individuals with very high consumption (5 servings/wk) should limit intake of species highest in mercury levels. Levels of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls in fish are low, and potential carcinogenic and other effects are outweighed by potential benefits of fish intake and should have little impact on choices or consumption of seafood (women of childbearing age should consult regional advisories for locally caught freshwater fish).

Conclusions  For major health outcomes among adults, based on both the strength of the evidence and the potential magnitudes of effect, the benefits of fish intake exceed the potential risks. For women of childbearing age, benefits of modest fish
intake, excepting a few selected species, also outweigh risks.

That’s what the USDA is saying, anyway.

USDA may relax standards for organic foods – Los Angeles Times

With the “USDA organic” seal stamped on its label, Anheuser-Busch calls its Wild Hop Lager “the perfect organic experience.” “In today’s world of artificial flavors, preservatives and factory farming, knowing what goes into what you eat and drink can just about drive you crazy,” the Wild Hop website says. “That’s why we have decided to go back to basics and do things the way they were meant to be … naturally.” But many beer drinkers may not know that Anheuser-Busch has the organic blessing from federal regulators even though Wild Hop Lager uses hops grown with chemical fertilizers and sprayed with pesticides. A deadline of midnight Friday to come up with a new list of nonorganic ingredients allowed in USDA-certified organic products passed without action from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, leaving uncertain whether some foods currently labeled “USDA organic” would continue to be produced.

Whatever you think about the virtues of organic food, this amounts to dilution of the label, misleading labeling, almost amounting to adulteration favoring the big boys at Anheuser-Busch and General Mills, ADM, etc. Knowing fully well that the average consumer has no time to read every frigging label behind every food item, knowing that they would see the “organic” label and assume that the whole thing is organic.

The USDA rules come with what appears to be an important consumer
protection: Manufacturers can use nonorganic ingredients only if
organic versions are not “commercially available.”

But food makers have found a way around this barrier, in part because
the USDA doesn’t enforce the rule directly. Instead, it depends on its
certifying agents — 96 licensed organizations in the U.S. and overseas
— to decide for themselves what it means for a product to be available
in organic form.

Despite years of discussion, the USDA has yet to provide certifiers with standardized guidelines for enforcing this rule.

Ah, good old ill-defined “voluntary enforcement” mechanisms, we all know how that works!
Why not have a second label “mostly organic”!! How about “I can’t believe this is organic!!”.

I think “mostly organic” food is still better than conventional factory food, but it should be labeled as such so the consumer can understand why General Mills “organic cereal” is 2 bucks  less expensive than your average small organic manufacturer’s cereal. Absent honesty in labeling, the average customer is apt to assume that the factory approach is always superior because it produces the same goods at lower prices, instead of coming to the correct conclusion that the factory producers constantly rig the game to their benefit.

Sometimes, you have to read what you’ve written in order to keep writing. I have not felt like writing at all, except in 140 character snippets. There are lots of people saying lots of things all the time, so who really cares, right? But I came back and read a post or two I had written on this blog, they weren’t half bad.

Consider myself a little more encouraged, I shall write more, soon, no pressure 🙂

No, not Tyra Banks and Riyo Mori, climate models that is.

ES&T Online News: Models underestimate global warming impacts

Modelers don’t purposely err on the conservative side, says Marika Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, but some processes “are just not well understood, and because of that have not been incorporated into climate models.” Holland has published model results on the fate of sea ice and coauthored the recent paper showing that ice is melting faster than models predicted. There are many reasons for the underestimates, she says. For example, models don’t fully capture heat transport between ocean and atmosphere, or faster warming as reflective ice gives way to darker, heat-absorbing waters.
But Rahmstorf says that modelers might unwittingly make models more conservative by applying “one-sided filters”, weeding out models that clearly overestimate the changes seen so far, but hanging onto ones “where everything is too well behaved and stable.”

Scientists are human too. The political and social climate in the US have been harsh to people who overestimate the effects of climate change. So, modeling scenarios that deviate significantly from accepted limits or runaway uncontrollably are discarded. Models are sets of assumptions based on underlying theory. If the theory of a particular sub-process is not clearly understood, then the assumptions become subjective. In a social climate that is waiting to pounce on an overestimate as example of negating the entire global warming phenomenon, assumptions made are conservative. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it comes at a price! As more observations come in, it does become clear that sometimes, things are happening faster and at greater magnitudes than our model predicted.

I begin to wonder how much of this was not known previously, and is coming out now, pushed by US domestic food interests who can suddenly become a little more competitive.

Reuters AlertNet – Pesticides next frontier in China food safety

China’s farmers overuse pesticides, skip protective clothing and have at their fingertips an array of banned and counterfeit products, raising another area of concern in the country’s fragile food chain. Spraying chemicals on crops improperly or using products that may be fake or banned risks the health of China’s hundreds of millions of farmers and could lead to unsafe levels of residues in fruits and vegetables, experts say. “The government has to stop banned or illegal pesticides being available in the market,” said Angus Lam, a Greenpeace Campaign Manager for Food and Agriculture based in the southern city of Guangzhou. China banned five high toxicity pesticides as of Jan. 1, but Lam said old stock was still in the market, in the hands of traders, retailers and farmers themselves. The government pledged last week to step up inspections in its food industry, saying checks on fertilisers and pesticides would be one of the priority areas.

China is not alone in this problem. Pesticides get overused in the US as well. But it’s as if all of a sudden, the mainstream press is waking up to the reality that is China. It is a developing country with high levels of growth in manufacturing, and a burgeoning middle class. But government regulation mechanisms have a long way to go to catch up.

The US surely knows this, and needed to have a more stringent testing regime with food imports from China. But the FDA was not given the mandate or the money. It is very easy to blame the FDA here. The fact of the matter is that any agency is only as good as the money and mandate it’s given. The political will to take a good look at where your food comes from, and how to ensure its safety needs to come first.

Technorati Tags: China, Food Safety, Pesticides