Seattle Times, "Toxins Found in Fish for Sale"

          Some fish sold at Washington groceries contains so much mercury or PCBs that people should limit their consumption, a study by the state Department of Health has found. Even so, the first state survey of grocery fish also found that many other kinds of fish are safe to eat in moderate amounts, and state health officials highlighted that in a continued push to get people to eat fish regularly. "Fish are great food. We want everybody to be eating the recommended two meals a week. But there are contaminants," said Jim VanDerslice, a Health Department epidemiologist.
          Halibut and red snapper bought from local stores had mercury -- a brain poison -- at levels high enough that children and women of childbearing age should eat no more than one meal a week of the fish, based on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines. And chinook salmon topped the list for the most PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, a long-banned chemical suspected of causing cancer and impairing brain development.
          But the results have experts divided on the dangers. Health Department officials say the PCB levels in the salmon are too low to put people at risk unless they eat unusually large amounts of the fish. But some environmentalists point out that EPA guidelines say eating chinook salmon with that much PCB more than once a month could increase the risk of cancer.