Earlier today Chicago Breaking News, the Huffington Post (and several others I am sure) reported that actor Jeremy Piven will be headed home from Broadway for a while-- due to "extreme mercury toxicity."

Now, not even Piven's doctors (and he has a couple) know why his mercury count was "the highest [they'd] ever seen" but other journalists at other outlets have noted that Piven was an avid sushi eater, meaning often he had two meals of sushi a day.

Which reminds me of my last job.

Shortly after I was hired my former employeer learned that he too had "extremely elevated mercury levels"... of mysterious origin...

There are plenty of ways to expose yourself to mercury, thermometers, CFL lightbulbs, and batteries are just a few. But the doctor of my former employer believed that most likely my boss' mercury issue was linked to the copious amounts of sushi-grade tuna he was eating each week. Which dovetails well with revelations from the New York Times just one year ago that they found illegally high mercury levels in 5 out of 20 samples of sushi tuna they purchased in NYC.

During the months following my employer's mercury discovery I spent a lot of time researching data on mercury in seafood and even had two samples of canned salmon from off the coast of British Columbia privately tested by a chemical lab for its mercury content at the behest of my employer. I don't remember the exact numbers, and I know that mercury levels in individual fish may vary, but the samples I had tested had a mercury content 3x higher than EPA estimates for the same species. The levels were not poisonous, but they were concerning.

To protect public health, FDA is legally allowed to remove fish from the market that contains more than 1ppm (part per million) of mercury. You would expect that the FDA would protect us by enforcing that... but notably several fish samples purchased by the New York Times surpassed that limit, and many fish species on EPA's website approach that limit. (You can find EPA's estimates regarding the mercury content in fish derived from data from 1990-2004 here).

Which may explain the befuddlement of Gina Solomon earlier this week when she learned of a bizarre draft document produced by Bush administration FDA "that ignores the science showing the harmful effects of prenatal exposures to mercury, and concludes that eating fish with relatively high levels of mercury can be beneficial"

Again, I'm no scientist. Or doctor. But this information about mercury just doesn't sit well with me, or the personal experience of people I've worked with. And since I'm not a scientist my best bet is to listen to Gina, who is both a scientist and a medical doctor. And to read things. And then to decide what is best for me.

Today, it is not a giant slice of tuna...

If you want to learn more about mercury in seafood, how much you may be eating each meal and what fish contain the lowest levels of mercury, check out NRDC's "mercury in seafood" website and wallet guides at http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/index.asp

More information can also be found on the Chicago Tribune website. They did a "local fish" test similar to the one done by the New York Times with similar results.