(JP) Extreme mercury levels revealed in whalemeat

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Extreme mercury levels revealed in whalemeat

 

10:32 06 June 02

 

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition

 

Tests on whalemeat on sale in Japan have revealed

astonishing levels of mercury. While it has long been

known that the animals accumulate heavy metals such as

mercury in their tissues, the levels discovered have

surprised even the experts.

 

Two of the 26 liver samples examined contained over

1970 micrograms of mercury per gram of liver. That is

nearly 5000 times the Japanese government's limit for

mercury contamination, 0.4 micrograms per gram.

 

At these concentrations, a 60-kilogram adult eating

just 0.15 grams of liver would exceed the weekly

mercury intake considered safe by the World Health

Organization, say Tetsuya Endo, Koichi Haraguchi and

Masakatsu Sakata at the University of Hokkaido, who

carried out the research. " Acute intoxication could

result from a single ingestion, " they warn in a draft

paper accepted for publication in The Science of the

Total Environment.

 

The researchers call on the government to impose

tighter regulations on the consumption of whale

organs. In particular, they warn that pregnant women

risk poisoning their unborn children. In the 1950s and

early 1960s, hundreds of children around Japan's

Minamata Bay were born with horrific birth defects

after their mothers ate seafood contaminated with

mercury compounds, which had been poured raw into the

bay since the 1930s. Thousands more suffered brain

damage.

 

Single mouthful

 

Even veteran researchers from the Minamata saga were

shocked by the new figures. " Hirokatsu Akagi, a

director of the National Institute for Minamata

Disease, was very surprised, " says Endo. " He'd never

seen levels above 20 micrograms per gram. "

 

On average, concentrations of mercury in whale and

dolphin livers were 370 micrograms per gram, 900 times

the government limit. Average levels in kidneys and

lungs were also high, about 100 times the limit. None

of the samples was below the limit.

 

In work not yet published, Endo's team has shown that

rats suffered acute kidney poisoning after a single

mouthful of the most highly contaminated liver. While

levels were lower in muscle, Endo told New Scientist

that on average it still contained 2.5 to 25 times the

limit.

 

The samples came from small-toothed whales and

dolphins, catches of which are not restricted by the

International Whaling Commission, the international

body that regulates whaling. Mercury becomes

concentrated in their internal organs when they eat

contaminated fish and squid.

 

Japan continues to campaign vigorously to be allowed

to resume full-scale whaling of larger species. But an

IWC meeting in May 2002 ended in deadlock.

 

Andy Coghlan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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