Dining Dilemma

A new study suggests that a federal advisory urging pregnant women to restrict their seafood intake could do more harm than good. But what about the risks of fish-borne mercury?

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WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Karen Springen

Newsweek

Updated: 9:21 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2007

Pregnant women may want to put fish back on their grocery lists. According to a study in the latest issue of The Lancet, the British medical journal, the nutritional benefits of seafood outweigh any toxic effects of trace contaminants like mercury. That's big news because many pregnant women are still following a 2004 advisory from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which warned them to avoid high-mercury fish (shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish) and to eat no more than 12 ounces of low-mercury seafood (shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, catfish) each week because of potentially harmful effects on the developing brain of the fetus. The new Lancet study suggests that advising pregnant women to limit their consumption of seafood could actually be detrimental to their children.