Coalition's guidelines on fish consumption for pregnant women 'misleading,' opinion piece says

The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition's recent recommendations for fish and seafood consumption for pregnant and breast-feeding women are "misleading" and a "classic example of industry-driven marketing under the cloak of scientific research," Andrea Kavanagh, director of the National Environmental Trust's Pure Salmon Campaign, writes in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece (Kavanagh, Los Angeles Times, 10/31).

The coalition is a not-for-profit group with nearly 150 members, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, March of Dimes, CDC and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The guidelines, released earlier this month, recommended that pregnant and breast-feeding women should consume at least 12 ounces of fish and seafood weekly for optimal brain development of fetuses, infants and young children. The group recommended eating ocean fish, such as salmon, tuna and sardines, which are highest in omega-3s. The guidelines also recommended higher fish and seafood consumption to protect women's health.

The coalition's guidelines conflict with current FDA and Environmental Protection Agency guidelines. FDA and EPA in 2005 issued separate warnings that advise young children, pregnant women, nursing women and women of childbearing age to avoid consuming swordfish, king mackerel, shark and tilefish because of high mercury levels. The warnings also recommended that those groups consume no more than 12 ounces of fish weekly and eat no more than six ounces of canned albacore tuna weekly (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 10/11). Some members of the coalition declined to endorse the guidelines, and some members criticized the coalition for accepting a $60,000 grant from the National Fisheries Institute, a fishing industry trade association, to help fund the research (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 10/18).

Kavanagh writes that it is "disturbing" that the coalition would "encourag[e] pregnant women to increase their consumption of fish despite the well-known risk of mercury and other contaminants commonly found in certain seafoods." In addition, the "researchers who developed the report ... didn't bother to vet its decidedly contentious findings and advice with the coalition's wider membership before public release," Kavanagh writes.

The "selective repackaging of science, combined with slick marketing to sell more fish to pregnant women and women of childbearing age, show the height of corporate irresponsibility," Kavanagh writes, concluding that the report is "one fishy marketing scheme that consumers should throw back" (Los Angeles Times, 10/31).