The last thing we would want is for people to stop eating fish. What they should do is not eat fish that is high in mercury. Health officials say haddock, cod, Atlantic salmon and shellfish are recommended for lower levels of mercury. Among freshwater fish, trout and landlocked salmon are safer than small-mouth bass. Mercury, a heavy metal, can cause permanent neurological and kidney damage.
Mercury collects in animals and moves up the food chain, primarily through fish .
But the levels of mercury that represent a threat are in dispute. The Food and Drug Administration, for example, would allow people to consume five times more mercury than the EPA, with the CDC falling between those two agencies. The limit used by the EPA is estimated to leave a constant level of mercury in person's body of 5.8 parts per billion. That is about 10 percent of the amount found in people in the Aleutian islands and New Zealand who suffer neurological damage because of a diet heavy in fish. The new study published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report was part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.