Originally published October 25 2005
Environmental groups pressure Whole Foods groceries to post mercury warnings
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Michael Bender, Director of the Mercury Policy Project, leads the effort to get the Whole Foods grocery chain to add mercury warnings to its tuna and swordfish.
Some environmental groups are pressing the Whole Foods grocery chain to begin posting warnings in their stores about the level of mercury found in some tuna and swordfish.
� California Sues Tuna Canneries "When you link on to Whole Foods Market website, they provide information about mercury in fish, the FDA advisory, and the list of fish that pregnant women should limit consumption of or not eat at all," said Michael Bender, Director of the Mercury Policy Project.
Last month, a coalition of environmental groups led by the Mercury Policy Project released the results of a major, 22-state mercury testing project, showing that store-bought swordfish and tuna contain levels of mercury that the federal government has determined may be hazardous to human health, particularly children.
Bender says mercury concentrations in fish tested from Whole Foods Market were among the highest.
Swordfish tested from a Whole Foods stores in Providence, Rhode Island came in at 2.143 parts per million mercury-twice the FDA's action level of 1 ppm.
Similarly, he says, a swordfish sample from a St. Paul, Minnesota Whole Foods had a mercury concentration of 1.633 ppm.
"Pregnant women and parents of young children need point-of- sale warnings to make informed choices about the fish they purchase," said Bender.
"Based on our test results, a 44-pound child eating six ounces of tuna weekly from the Washington, DC Whole Foods Market would be four times over the EPA's reference dose, and a 120-pound woman eating just six ounces of tuna weekly from the Anne Arundel County, Maryland Whole Foods store would be eating one and one-half times EPA's reference dose."
The results released in "Fair Warning: Why Grocery Stores Should Tell Parents About Mercury in Fish" were more comprehensive than any recently released by the FDA and included samples purchased at popular supermarket chains such as Safeway, Shaw's, Albertsons and Whole Foods.
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