Awareness and knowledge of methylmercury in fish in the United States

In the 1970s several states in the Great Lakes region became concerned about mercury contamination in lakes and rivers and were the first to issue local fish consumption advisories. In 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised pregnant women, nursing mothers, young children, and women who...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental research 2011-04, Vol.111 (3), p.442-450
Main Authors: Lando, Amy M., Zhang, Yuanting
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
Adolescent
Adult
Age
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Chemical and industrial products toxicology. Toxic occupational diseases
Child, Preschool
CHILDREN
Consumers
Cross-Sectional Studies
Data Collection
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Female
Fish
Fish consumption
Fishes
Food Contamination
Foods
Freshwater
Humans
Knowledge
Lakes
Mackerel
Male
Marine
Medical sciences
MERCURY
Metals and various inorganic compounds
METHYLMERCURY
Methylmercury Compounds
Middle Aged
National survey
Pregnancy
PUBLIC HEALTH
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Safety
Scomber
Seafood
Thunnus
Toxicology
TUNA
United States
United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Food and Drug Administration
US EPA
US FDA
WATER POLLUTION
WOMEN
Women of childbearing age
Young Adult
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Summary:In the 1970s several states in the Great Lakes region became concerned about mercury contamination in lakes and rivers and were the first to issue local fish consumption advisories. In 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised pregnant women, nursing mothers, young children, and women who may become pregnant not to consume shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish and recommended that these women not exceed 12 ounces of other fish per week. In 2004, FDA reissued this advice jointly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and modified it slightly to provide information about consumption of canned tuna and more details about consumption of recreationally caught fish. Though several studies have examined consumers' awareness of the joint FDA and EPA advisory as well as different state advisories, few used representative data. We examined the changes in awareness and knowledge of mercury as a problem in fish using the pooled nationally representative 2001 and 2006 Food Safety Surveys (FSS) with sample sizes of 4482 in 2001 and 2275 in 2006. Our results indicated an increase in consumers' awareness of mercury as a problem in fish (69% in 2001 to 80% in 2006, p
ISSN:0013-9351
1096-0953
DOI:10.1016/j.envres.2011.01.004