Likely incoming EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman is not expected to reverse course. As New Jersey governor, Whitman helped lead the Northeast states attack on air emissions from Midwestern electric power plants. The agency admitted in the announcement it did not know how much, if any, mercury in fish comes from power plants. The FDA warning can only be explained as intending to boost the EPA effort. The warning comes six months after the NAS study which itself was no cause for alarm and precedes the release of two important studies, a follow-up to the Seychelles study and a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on mercury exposure from fish consumption.
Government agencies terrorizing the public about the food supply for political gain is shameful.
Hopefully the inauguration of President George W. Bush will mark the beginning of the end of such roguish conduct by regulatory agencies.