Are Americans at risk for mercury poisoning from eating fish?
A. Nobody in this country has ever experienced mercury poisoning from eating fish. And the same is true for most countries around the world. There have been four cases worldwide where people have been poisoned by consuming foods containing very high concentrations of methylmercury. During the 1950s, 111 people from Minamata City, Japan died or experienced neurological disorders from eating fish contaminated with very high concentrations of methylmercury – up to 40 parts per million, compared to FDA’s limit of 1 ppm. In this case, an industrial facility was releasing manufactured methylmercury directly into Minamata Bay. A second incidence in 1965 occurred in Niigata, Japan where 120 people were similarly poisoned. The other two incidents involved people in Iraq who ate bread from grain that was contaminated with a fungicide containing mercury. Here, the people were exposed to even higher levels of mercury than in Japan and thousands were hospitalized.
