Chicago Tribune, "New warning for canned tuna; Mercury risk for pregnant women too high, Consumer Reports says"

          The chance that canned tuna will contain high levels of mercury is great enough that pregnant women should never eat it, according to new recommendations from a leading consumer group.
          Officials at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said they decided to recommend a tuna-free diet for pregnant women based on a Tribune investigative series on mercury in fish and the latest testing by the Food and Drug Administration. The newspaper reported late last year that about 15 percent of canned light tuna -- the kind of tuna touted by the FDA as a low-mercury option -- is made with a species that often contains high amounts of the toxic metal.
          It is unclear if a single meal of high-mercury seafood could damage a fetus. Consumers Union, though, concluded that enough experts think the developing brain is so sensitive to mercury that caution should prevail. "This is important information that women need to hear," said Jean Halloran, the director of food policy at Consumers Union and a member of an FDA advisory panel on mercury in seafood. "We think that high exposures, even for a day or two, could be too much of a risk."

Learn more about the dangers of mercury in tuna and tuna mercury poisoning lawsuits.