Fish study was accurate

By: David Martosko
Newspaper: The Record

Andrea Kavanagh's quibble over industry funding of a recent seafood-science review ignores the reality that the review itself was spot-on correct. (Fish Merchants Make Case With Questionable Research, Nov. 3).

This sort of sober look at the latest and best science is just the kind of work the federal government should be doing, but isn't.

The only study (of many convincing ones) with which Kavanagh takes issue, published this year in The Lancet, is the most robust look to date at the impact on children of pregnant women who eat fish. It found, quite convincingly, that avoiding fish during pregnancy will result in a child with diminished IQ and motor skills.

And vice versa.

When I was a kid, my mother (a nurse) insisted that fish was "brain food." It was considered just about the healthiest thing people could eat, pregnant or not. And guess what? It still is. It's sad that the idea of eating fish -- lots of it -- needs a PR campaign in the first place. I think we've all been listening too much to environmental activists and not enough to our moms.