Federal Consumption Advice

Joint Federal Advisory for Mercury in Fish

• Public Health Advisory: What you need to know about mercury in fish & shellfish
  Advice to women who may become pregnant, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children. The complete advisory message, including a set of frequently asked questions. | Print Version (PDF) (2 pp, 56K)
• Fact Sheet: Background on the FDA/EPA Consumer Advisory on Mercury in Fish and Shellfish
  Background on the process used to develop and test the advisory message, a summary of the key messages and of differences between the current and previous advisories.
• Advisory programs in your State | State contacts list
  State and tribal environmental programs and departments of health issue fish consumption advisories for their waterbodies. The contacts page lists fish consumption advisory program contact information and links to fish consumption advice from states, tribes, and territories.

Technical Information

• Technical Memorandum: Origin of 1 meal / week Freshwater Fish Consumption Rate (PDF) (5 pp, 84K)
  The national advisory includes advice on eating fish caught by family and friends from local waters. The national advice says that in the absence of local advice, you can eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but do not consume any other fish during that week. This technical memorandum documents the derivation of the 6 ounces per week.
• Mean Tissue Mercury Concentrations in Non-commercial Fish from Advisory Sites (PDF) (18K)
  This graph shows measured levels of mercury in a variety of fish species commonly caught during recreational and subsistence fishing activities.

Background

• Stakeholder meetings on FDA and EPA development of a joint advisory for methylmercury-containing fish consumption for women of childbearing age and children - July 29-31, 2003.
  • FDA Summary of the Main Comments from the Four Meetings
  • FDA Slide Presentation at the Meeting
  • FDA List of Meeting Attendees