Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Eating high trophic level fish may be self-limiting...

"Adults exposed to methylmercury through a fish diet have immune system changes similar to those seen in more highly exposed gold mine workers, according to a study of Brazilians living in the Amazon River Basin.

The results from the fish-eating exposures could be relevant to other places, including those in the United States where people regularly eat fish with higher mercury levels..."

Read more from The Environmental Health News

The take-home message to me is that people eating high trophic level fish (which, as I discuss in the book, are likely to have bio-concentrated methylmercury and other fat soluble contaminants), will ultimately be harmed.  In a tragic sense, the problem is self-limiting because they ultimately won't be around to keep eating those increasingly rare fish!

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