Oceans activists call for canned goods tuna to be banned hospitalschool canteens, nursing homes and maternity wards after high concentrations of mercury was found in every sample analyzed.
They accused public authorities and the tuna industry of “cynical lobbying”, which favors “the economic interests of industrial tuna fishing to the detriment of the health of over hundreds of millions of tuna consumers in Europe“.
This means that for 50 years, a mercury threshold three times higher for tuna than for other fish species such as cod was set as “acceptable”, “without the slightest health reason for a different threshold”.
The French non-profit organization Bloom, which aims to protect marine environments, and the consumer rights organization Foodwatch analyzed 148 cans of tuna from five European countries: Great Britain, Germany, Spain, France and Italy.
They found that all products contained mercury and 57 percent exceeded the limit for fish of 0.3 mg per kg.
The findings, which they called “a health scandal on an unprecedented scale”, prompted Foodwatch to warn of a “colossal risk to public health”.
Exposure to even small amounts of mercury can cause serious health problems and threatens the development of unborn babies and children, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which considers it a major public health problem, on par with asbestos and arsenic.
Mercury can have toxic effects on the nervous system, the digestive system and the immune system, and on the lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes, says the WHO.
Methylmercury, i.e what forms after mercury interacts with bacteria and is the most common form in food, is classified as possibly causing cancer.
Bloom said: “European public authorities have chosen an approach completely contrary to their duty to protect public health: they use the mercury contamination of the tuna itself to establish a threshold that ensures that 95 percent can be sold. That is why tuna, one of the most contaminated species, have a maximum mercury tolerance that is three times higher than that of the least contaminated species.”
Tuna accumulate more mercury over time because they are high up in the food chain and often eat smaller fish.
But the canning process doubles or triples the mercury concentration, according to Bloom.
It said that in the Seychelles, where tuna is caught for Europe, the authorities only have to carry out about ten tests each year. “When it lands in France, for example, as far as we know, less than 50 fresh tuna are sampled each year by the public authorities, and no canned fish is tested.”
Karine Jacquemart, CEO of Foodwatch France, said: “What we end up with on our dinner plates is a colossal risk to public health that is not being taken seriously.”
Bloom and Foodwatch are calling for a stricter limit for mercury in tuna, the same as for other species, of 0.3 mg/kg instead of the current 1 mg/kg.
They are also lobbying Europe’s biggest supermarkets to pull products across the threshold from their shelves; an end to all advertising of tuna products and clear labeling warning of health risks.
And they say tuna products must be banned from hospitals, schools and nursing homes to protect vulnerable people.
Mark Willis, head of chemical contamination at the UK’s Food Standards Agency, said: “We advise those trying to conceive or who are pregnant not to eat more than four cans of tuna a week or no more than two tuna steaks a week. This is because tuna contains higher levels of mercury than other fish.”
The European Commission told Euronews Health “the maximum levels of mercury in food are established on the basis of the information we have about the actual, real presence of mercury in food”.
“We do this by monitoring products placed on the market, taking into account the principle of ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ when producers use good practice,” officials added.
The commission said the maximum level could not be reduced below 1 ppm “without drastically disrupting the food supply”.
“When consuming large quantities of the most contaminated fish with the highest limit values, the tolerable weekly intake can be exceeded,” it added.
A spokesperson for Europêche, which represents fishing fleets, denied the claims in the report and said The Independent: “Among the misleading information is the legal threshold communicated is not the one used in practice. Additionally, the reported levels were based on dried tuna instead of raw tuna meat, resulting in a bias of at least a factor of 3.5.
“Scientific studies published in February 2024 by French researchers and Environmental Science & Technology show that mercury levels in tuna have remained unchanged for over 50 years.
“Canned tuna products offered to EU consumers follow strict European rules, which are based on scientific criteria for safe maximum daily intake. These thresholds are carefully set by experts from the European Food Safety Authority to guarantee consumer safety.”
They added that selenium neutralized mercury’s potential toxicity.
The Federation of Canned Food Industries, which represents the French processing industry, said it was not dangerous to eat canned tuna and that “the products offered to consumers strictly respect French and European regulations”. It said tuna was “part of the recommendations for fish consumption as part of a balanced diet”.
