FDA updates mercury-in-seafood advice

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration is updating its advice for pregnant women on levels of mercury in types of seafood, but Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the agency won’t require mercury labels on seafood packages.

Hamburg said on Friday that the agency will update guidance on mercury in varieties of seafood and what that means. That’s a longawaited move aimed at helping women better understand what to eat when they’re pregnant.

“It’s an advisory, not an effort to mandate labeling,” Hamburg said. “Different seafood products do contain different levels of mercury, and so different seafood products can be rated in terms of levels of mercury.”

For most people, accumulating mercury from eating seafood isn’t a health risk. But the FDA has warned that pregnant women, those who might become pregnant, and young children avoid certain types of highmercury fish because of concern that too much could harm a developing brain.

Consumer groups have sued the agency, saying that the warnings weren’t clear enough about what to avoid.

The government’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines incorporated the FDA’s warnings to say that pregnant or breastfeeding women should consume 8 to 12 ounces of a variety of seafood per week. But it said they should not eat tilefish, shark, swordfish and king mackerel because of the mercury content, and it advised limiting white albacore tuna to 6 ounces a week.