New mercury scare risks lives, harms fish industry.

"E.P.A. Says Mercury Taints Fish Across U.S." blared the New York Times headline on August 24. The article's opening sentence reads: "The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that fish in virtually all of the nation's lakes and rivers were contaminated with mercury, a highly toxic metal that poses health risks lot pregnant women and young children."

"Michael O. Leavitt, the E.P.A. administrator, drew his conclusion from the agency's latest annual survey of fish advisories," the Times story continued, "which showed that 48 states--all but Wyoming and Alaska--issued warnings about mercury last year. That compared with 44 states in 1993, when the surveys were first conducted."

Buried in the article, between the dire headlines and frightening-sounding statistics, is the important admission that "the widespread presence of mercury reflected a surge in monitoring--not an increase in emissions." The story also acknowledged that the E.P.A. had "provided a chart showing the level of mercury emission from human causes fell 45 percent in 1999 from 1990."

The new mercury scare on fresh water fish is a repeat of the Chicken Little (of the Sea) fright peddling by federal bureaucrats and media misfits several months earlier concerning the supposed threat from mercury in tuna. Oddly enough, the Times, in an April 10, 2004 article entitled "Fears (Real and Excessive) From Warning on Tuna," got the story mostly right. Times writer Jennifer Lee noted in that story that, contrary to muddled messages and widespread fears, "the federal government says tuna is actually very good for people, an affordable, low-fat, high-protein source of the omega-3 fatty acids that reduce heart disease."

Lee quoted Eric Rimm, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, who lamented the health risks caused by the fedgov misinformation over mercury. "The message of fish being good has been lost," Professor Rimm said "and people are learning more about the hypothetical scare of a contaminant than they are of the well-documented benefits of coronary disease reduction. The dangers of the tuna fish [are] not well documented compared to the potential dangers for a 50-year-old male or female ... at much higher risk of coronary death."

However, four months later the Times is back with the rest of the Chicken Little chorus, sounding "the sky is falling" mercury alarms.