Proof Local News Can Get Tuna Just As Wrong As the National Press
A small-town news site called the Iowa Park Leader published a piece this week claiming canned tuna “should never be consumed more than once a month.” We submitted this letter to the editor, asking for a correction and a substantive follow-up. We’ll update this post if we hear back.
To the Editors:
Your About Us page pledges “accuracy, transparency, and a deep respect for the residents” of Iowa Park. The April 26 article on canned tuna and mercury (“This canned tuna that millions of families eat every week contains mercury levels that nutritionists say should never be consumed more than once a month” by Caleb Morrison) fails every one of those commitments, and your readers deserve a correction.
The piece never identifies a single tuna product, names a single nutritionist, cites a single study, or points to a single specific data point. The headline promises a specific, alarming finding. The article delivers nothing but vague gestures toward unnamed “nutrition coaches” and “registered dietitians” who “say” and “advise” and “warn”—but apparently none of them have names or ever went on the record. This is not journalism. It is frankly not even up to the standards of an AI content mill.
The science Mr. Morrison gestures at but never actually cites does not support the alarm. The FDA’s safety limit for mercury in fish is 1.0 parts per million—a threshold that already builds in a tenfold safety cushion. Average mercury content across U.S. commercial seafood runs roughly 0.072 ppm, more than 14 times below that limit. There is no general-population advisory telling anyone to treat a can of albacore as a “once-a-month” food. None. To suggest otherwise to readers who may take the advice at face value is to do them a profound disservice in the name of very few clicks.
It is also worth noting what the article ignores entirely: the well-documented public health cost of under-eating seafood. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend three or more servings of seafood per week. The average American gets nowhere near that. Low seafood intake is associated with nearly 84,000 preventable deaths annually. For pregnant women—the group your article seems most interested in alarming—the stakes are even higher: studies have linked seafood restriction during pregnancy to measurably lower IQ in children, due to deficits in omega-3 DHA.
Your About Us page says Iowa Park Leader is “more than a news outlet” — it is “a commitment to our community.” Scaring the families in Iowa Park away from a safe, affordable, available can of protein has real consequences.