Despite its long history of actively misinforming readers about seafood and nutrition, the product reviewers at Consumer Reports took another crack at pretending to understand the science. The results are a disaster for public health.

Here’s just some of the things they got wrong:

Broadcast news outlets that purport to give health or lifestyle advice have a responsibility to their readers to provide factual, accurate information. At a bare minimum, they should not blindly promote some product or life choice, while disparage alternatives, without covering all the relevant sides of the issue. The editorial team at Forbes and contributor Janet Forgrieve came up short on all scores in a recent piece [Good Catch Touts Tuna That’s Better For the Oceans, Safe For The Office; 2/20].

Forgrieve uncritically accepts the claims made by Good Catch, producers of bean-based products they misleadingly refer to as “seafood”, without giving any space to skeptics. She could have done a simple internet search to find ample information about the well-known health benefits of seafood. Or she could have reached out to us, and we would have provided research on sustainable fishing to refute Good Catch’s unfounded and hyperbolic claims about the “dire situation” in our oceans.

Chad Sarno, co-founder of Good Catch, further makes the completely unsupported claim that doctors tell pregnant women not to eat tuna. This is dangerous rhetoric that contributes to a national public health crisis. Pregnant women need to eat more seafood than the 1.8 ounces per week they currently consume on average, and canned or pouched tuna is a nutritious and affordable option.

Mercury content standards for consumer products are already extremely rigorous. The FDA’s recommended limit for mercury in seafood has a ten-fold safety-factor built in. And the FDA’s Net Effects report, which is based on 100 peer-reviewed studies, found that even a pregnant woman could eat tuna for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every day of the week, without worry.

Forbes owes their readers an update. They could start by including facts that Forgrieve omitted from her piece:

In a world saturated with conflicting and confusing dietary advice there is remarkable expert consensus on one subject: Americans need to eat more seafood. Period.

So when click-bait articles pegged to the latest food fad or fringe diet peddle in dusty and debunked clichés about fish and mercury, the result is not just that readers are misled. Their health is actively endangered.

Reader’s Digest’s recent post [The Scary Reason You Shouldn’t Eat the Same Foods Every Day, by Emily Shiffer, 1/23/19] poses just such a threat. Ms. Shiffer tells readers it’s “scary” to eat too much of the same foods, and singles out tuna as specifically dangerous due to concerns over mercury. But there is no reason to limit tuna consumption due to mercuy, and indeed the only piece she cites in support, written by one of her own colleagues, doesn’t even mention tuna.

The truth is that there has never been a case of mercury poisoning from normal consumption of commercial seafood recorded in any American medical journal. That’s right, zero cases.

Indeed, the FDA’s own analysis of more than 100 scientific studies on seafood concludes that the average person could eat canned tuna for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week without worry.

But many Americans aren’t getting that message because of click-bait articles like Ms. Shiffers. The FDA warns that most Americans are eating dangerously low amounts of seafood, a deficiency that contributes to nearly 84,000 preventable deaths each year. Another long-term study showed that children whose mothers had reduced their seafood intake during pregnancy had appreciably lower IQs.

Other agencies agree that more seafood consumption is needed. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, for example, urge consumers to eat more fish and recommend tuna as a healthy option. The USDA too recommends that Americans eat at least 2-3 servings of seafood per week. That’s because seafood is rich in important nutrients, such as a vitamins B12 and D, iron, zinc, magnesium, phosphorous, selenium and beneficial omega-3s called EPA & DHA.

In the face of such overwhelming scientific evidence, unsupported and unsourced attacks on tuna are especially galling. Reader’s Digest owes its readers more, and we call on them to update their story with the real facts about tuna.

Recently Discover Magazine published dangerously misleading myths about mercury in tuna, so we wrote a letter of concern to the editors. After receiving no response from the editorial team, we also posted that letter as a comment under the article to give readers all the facts.  To our surprise, it was deleted, multiple times, without explanation.

Per Discover Magazine’s own Terms of Use, our comment meets all of the article community rules for inclusion. Our comment cannot be considered in anyway “unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable,” the listed justifications for deletion. Removal of our comment appears to be arbitrary at best, biased at worst.

As a magazine devoted to report “developments in science, medicine, technology, and the world around us” it is counterintuitive to us that Discover Magazine would inhibit our ability to present readers with a factually informed perspective, rooted in peer-reviewed research from the FDA, the USDA, and the American Heart Association.

Here’s the original letter, and a follow-up we wrote asking for an explanation of the deletions.

Discover Magazine Letter PDF:

Original NFI comment:

Despite a rare and stinging rebuke issued by the FDA, activist magazine Consumer Reports is again pushing reckless misinformation about seafood consumption.  Directly contradicting the public health guidance from federal agencies and every leading medical institution, the magazine claims that “Consumer Reports analyses of mercury levels in tuna suggest that pregnant women shouldn’t eat it at all.”

Yet in response to their initial canned tuna “report,” the FDA released a statement, “[T]he methodology employed by Consumer Reports overestimates the negative effects and overlooks the strong body of scientific evidence published in the last decade.” Consumer Reports false claims that pregnant women should completely avoid canned tuna, while other consumers should stick to light canned tuna, are based solely on their own irresponsible and makeshift study.

Leading health officials have long understood and advised that canned tuna is a nutritious food that provides many health benefits. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans urge consumers to eat more fish and recommend tuna as a healthy option. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also suggests that Americans eat at least 2-3 servings of seafood per week. That’s because seafood is rich in important nutrients, such as a vitamins B12 and D, iron, zinc, magnesium, phosphorous, selenium and beneficial omega-3s called EPA and DHA.

Their statement is especially misleading because the average can of light or albacore tuna has mercury levels of 0.1 and 0.3 parts per million, substantially below the FDA’s safety level of 1.0ppm. That means that, according to the FDA’s Net Effects Report, which encompassed over 100 peer-reviewed studies, the average person can safely eat tuna for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

Between the FDA’s admonishment and our constant reminders that Consumer Reports is misleading the public, which we’ve done here, here, here, and here, the magazine has presented no substantive response. Most Americans are eating dangerously low amounts of seafood, a deficiency that contributes to nearly 84,000 preventable deaths each year. Yet Consumer Reports continues to scare consumers away from one of the most nutritious and easily accessible seafood options. Their utter disregard for the accepted and prevailing public health consensus on the safety of tuna consumption is disgraceful.

Unsubstantiated claims made by unqualified parties are no substitute for sound science.

Last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council published fake news. While the FDA, EPA, scientists, and nutritionists are all calling for Americans to eat more seafood – including canned tuna – the NRDC is doing just the opposite. A post on keeping kid-friendly food in the kitchen includes a warning from NRDC’s Miriam Rotkin-Ellman that canned tuna is not safe for children. The NRDC’s entire argument is an unsourced claim that there is a “documented case” of a child getting mercury poisoning from eating tuna sandwiches every day

Meanwhile, the empirical record is clear.   There has never been an instance of mercury poisoning from normal commercial seafood consumption recorded in any American medical journal.

NRDC’s failure to improperly source this claim is particularly egregious because it exacerbates a public health crisis.

The organization’s recommendation that parents steer clear of tuna contradicts the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which urge consumers to eat more fish and recommends tuna as a healthy option. Moreover, studies have found that insufficient seafood consumption is to blame for nearly 84,000 preventable deaths each year, and that seafood consumption helps ensure brain and eye development in children. In fact, A long-term study showed that children whose mothers had reduced their seafood intake during pregnancy had appreciably lower IQs. Those children missed out on key nutrients like Omega-3 fatty acids –which every major health organization says are essential for healthy brain development.

The NRDC claims to be committed to using the combined expertise of lawyers, scientists, and policy experts to make the world a better place, but pieces like this suggest they’re more committed to activism than science.  If they’re at all serious about accurately informing their readers, they need to immediately remove fake news from their website & commit to publishing analysis grounded in sound scientific inquiry.

Overused and ineffective rank’n’spank system makes another appearance   

March 9 2014 – WASHINGTON, DC – Greenpeace has released a new fund raising campaign designed to rank U.S. canned tuna companies and solicit donations from supporters. The list itself follows the model Greenpeace has used for years: rank companies based on a system for which the scoring methodology is totally arbitrary and hidden, then promote those rankings in the media—rank’n’spank.

The non-scientific, non-transparent and completely subjective rankings are one of the thinnest offerings Greenpeace has ever promoted. While other annual rank’n’spank campaigns have been largely dismissed as ineffective sideshows, with a target audience of donors and institutional supporters Greenpeace has at least made an effort to make those operations appear robust. This latest promotion is anemic at best.

The media should keep in mind that Greenpeace is the same group that refuses to join the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF)’s ongoing dialogue about tuna.

sustainability. The Foundation, a partnership between global tuna canners (including Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and Starkist), scientists and WWF, is the premier tuna conservation group. Reporters and producers might find it odd that Greenpeace doesn’t even acknowledge a group whose mission is to undertake science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of tuna stocks yet they will rank companies who participate in such group.

The media is advised to research Greenpeace’s strategy and push for scrutiny on its unpublished methodology. Further it’s urged to recognize the timing of Greenpeace’s fundraising pitches and the release of such rankings. When you click to “add your name” to what appears to be an online petition, notice two things 1.) Only the three top branded tuna companies are addressed in the “petition” despite ranking fourteen 2.) You are required to give them your name and email address to sign on – we encourage reporters to test this system and watch your inbox begin to fill up with donation requests almost right away.

Greenpeace is a multinational behemoth with a $300-million a year operating budget. It has spent a grand total of zero dollars on tuna science, yet continues to use tuna as a poster child for its fund raising efforts.

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Oceanographer and National Geographic “Explorer-in-Residence” Sylia A. Earle made a bizarre claim about tuna on Twitter:

“Did you know that it takes 100,000 lbs. of plants to grow one lb. of tuna? A pound of chicken takes two pounds of plants!” Earle wrote in a tweet dated November 25.

We’re not sure where Earle learned math, but not only are her numbers wrong—her premise is faulty. None of our tuna is “grown” on farms the way the chicken she uses as an example is. All of our tuna is wild-caught, just as mankind has caught fish for eons. There is some experimentation in tuna aquaculture (you may have heard it called “tuna farming” or “tuna ranching”) but in those cases, tuna are fed small baitfish like sardines, herring, and anchovies, not plants. And the “feed conversion ratio”, which is the phrase farmers and ranchers use, is exponentially smaller than the 100,000-to-1 ratio Earle cites.

It’s possible that Earle gets the 100,000 number by counting not just everything tuna actually eat, but everything eaten by everything tuna actually eat, and everything eaten by everything eaten by everything tuna actually eat, and so on, all the way down the food chain to plankton. If you find this a confusing and odd choice, you’re not alone.

The fact is that, unlike the chicken in Earle’s inapt analogy, we don’t “feed” our wild-caught tuna anything in order to “grow” them. Mother Nature determines the tuna’s diet, not us, and they would eat what they eat whether or not we fished for them.

Today we give a well-deserved tip of the cap to the National Post’s Rex Murphy.

In a recent column that’s well worth the read, Murphy surveyed the spectacle that Greenpeace has become, charting how the organization has evolved from a scrappy, ideological underdog to what Murphy terms a “corporate [fundraising] brand” unto itself.

While Greenpeace used to be known for taking bold moves such as staging sit-ins at nuclear weapons testing grounds, Murphy writes, they now resort to protests directed at “gentle-minded, humane, risk-averse Western targets” in what amounts to “pure kabuki, [a] show without consequence.” Their goal: fundraising in an effort to replenish Greenpeace’s corporate coffers.

But while it’s encouraging to see Murphy call out Greenpeace after decades of childish antics, his voice remains a lonely one in the broader media.

The environmental press, in particular, can’t or won’t see what Murphy does, and indeed go out of their way to praise the accomplishments of Greenpeace, despite any evidence that their juvenile actions are having a positive impact on global sustainability efforts. In the world of canned tuna, for instance, the Greenpeace playbook is to make false claims about how tuna is sourced while refusing to join the global tuna industry in real sustainability dialogue.  And where are the journalists asking Greenpeace to do an economic impact study for the highly inefficient, “throwback” pole and line methods they recommend for tuna fishing? How much more would a can of tuna cost for the families Greenpeace claims to be helping if tuna companies rolled back decades of technological progress?

And who in the press is asking how many more fishing boats, spending how many more man hours and burning how much more fuel, would be required to meet global seafood demand under Greenpeace’s preferred fishing policies? Has any reporter demanded that their patron saints of environmentalism do an environmental impact study of their own preferred policies?

When Greenpeace advocates for pole and line caught canned tuna, they’re also advocating for dramatically increasing the price—and carbon footprint—of one of the most nutritious and affordable foods available to Americans, plain and simple. And in a country that eats far less than half of the recommended amount of seafood suggested per week, giving in to Greenpeace’s policy prescription of catching fish one at a would be disastrous.

Rex Murphy deserves a round of applause for seeing through the rhetoric and theater of Greenpeace’s demands and for recognizing that the organization is nothing more than an elaborate fundraising scheme  We hope the rest of the media follows his lead and starts to ask Greenpeace the tough questions about their prescriptions for tuna sustainability.

Those of us in the U.S. are not the only ones fed up with Greenpeace’s shenanigans.

All over the world, Greenpeace activists have trespassed and vandalized property — hanging banners, spray-painting graffiti, chaining themselves to buildings and equipment — to grab publicity and harass businesses and governments. Of course, these antics have done nothing to advance real solutions to the world’s problems. They’re just the same tired pranks repeated over and over.

And people around the globe are growing weary.

Last month, the Spanish Fisheries Federation (Cepesca) blasted Greenpeace activists for chaining themselves to a fake fishing boat and hanging a banner outside the entrance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (Magrama).

The association said it regretted that Greenpeace “has not been able to express its goals and arguments in the discussion channels where the other agents in the fishing industry, ship owners, crew, industry, NGOs, consumers, women’s networks and other interested parties provide ideas and arguments.”

Cepesca also made clear that while the Spanish fishing industry is taking action to ensure that seafood is plentiful for generations to come, Greenpeace is doing nothing productive — even blowing off panels advising the European Commission on fisheries policies.

As one publication noted: “Given the recent incidents, Cepesca finds it regrettable that Greenpeace does not provide solutions and chooses the performance of vandalistic and illegal acts that only provide ‘media covers but no contributions to help improve the sustainability of the fishing activity.’”

How familiar that all sounds to us.

On this side of the ocean, we’ve also seen our fair share of Greenpeace blimps and protests that are meant to intimidate tuna companies and raise money from Greenpeace supporters.  All the while refusing to sit at the table with legitimate sustainability organizations like International Seafood Sustainability Initiative, WWF and MSC to name a few.

Backlash is growing around the world for Greenpeace’s brand of ecoterrorism that is increasingly becoming stale and irrelevant.