Don't eat the sushi!

Following on the food topics, the NY Times report alarmingly high levels of mercury in tuna sushi. Though the world's largest consumer of tuna, Japan, is not so worried. The Health Ministry advising pregnant women to "limit the amount" and average adults to eat a "sensible amount".
I found this video on CNN, talking about mercury levels in fish. And a link to another EPA / FDA advice statement.

Mercury in vaccines

There is no "causal association between early exposure to mercury" (from vaccines) and "deficits in neuropsychological functioning" in 7 - 10 year old children according to an article in the New England Journal published today. Over 1000 children were examined in the tests, while the tests did not specifically look for a link to autism, the results seem to indicate that parents (and children) can breath easy. Though reassuring this is undoubtedly not the last we shall hear on this subject.

Apologies

My typing has been slow, and I haven't posted in a week. Worse I failed to acknowledge a comment to the Mad Hatter post.

To make amends here are a couple of links: the FDA has a great page on Thimersal (a mercury containing preservative). But this is not the end to the story as you can read in this wikipedia article.

A PubMed search for Thimersal resulted in 972 hits, the latest being in ToxSci - the official journal of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) - discussing the effect of Thimersal on gastric cancer cells.

Mad as a hatter

The phrase "Mad as a hatter" is thought to come from the use of mercury (and subsequent poisonings) in the felt hat trade.

I'm in LA today, I should have been here a lot earlier, however Delta in their wisdom over sold my flight and so I was bounced from the early morning flight to one six hours later - I was not happy. Anyway, watching CNN in the waiting area I see they are doing a piece on Mercury poisoning, levels in fish etc.

I remember as an undergrad chemist spending part of an inorganic course discussing heavy metal build up, with the examples of the horrors in Minamata in Japan. In Neurotoxicology and Teratology we have published many papers over the years regarding different exposure levels to mercury including a couple of great papers in the September / October 2006 issue.

The US FDA and EPA have both issued advisories on fish, shellfish and mercury levels (FDA, EPA).

May be best to hold back on the sushi when pregnant . . .