WASHINGTON, DC– Congressman George Miller (D-CA) today reacted to a new report released by Defenders of Wildlife that showed significant levels of mercury in imported light tuna fish.

According to the report, independent testing found that the average mercury content in the imported light canned tuna, which is majority of the tuna on American grocery shelves, was more than twice the average for light tuna that the FDA found in their test samples and well above their cutoff for “low-mercury” fish.

Miller’s statement is below.

“This report merits an immediate response from the federal officials responsible for protecting the health of American consumers. Americans must be able to trust federal safety guidelines for food. But this report casts serious doubt on federal tuna safety guidelines.

“According to the new findings, all Americans who eat tuna fish – especially children in schools and pregnant women – could be in far more danger of consuming unsafe levels of mercury than the government currently calculates.

“This information comes after years of efforts by the Bush administration to weaken the rules that protect us against mercury emissions from power plants. The Bush administration has also attempted to relax the dolphin-safe label in order to allow additional unsafe Mexican tuna imports.

“Congress and the Bush administration should act quickly to investigate the findings of this report and take whatever steps are necessary to adjust federal safety guidelines for tuna if warranted, and to work to reduce mercury emissions.”

We post many documents in .pdf format. Please visit Adobe to download the free viewer if you do not already have this capability.