According to the scientists, the health risks posed by mercury-contaminated fish are sufficient to warrant issuing a worldwide general warning to the public - especially children and women of childbearing age - to be careful about how much and which fish they eat.

However, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has said that in light of more recent and reliable science, the public should ignore this warning.

The warning was one of the key findings comprising "The Madison Declaration on Mercury Pollution", published in a special issue of the international science journal Ambio.

Developed at the Eighth International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant last August in Madison, Wisconsin, the declaration is a synopsis of the latest scientific knowledge about the danger posed by mercury pollution.

It presents 33 principal findings from five synthesis papers prepared by the world's leading mercury scientists and published in the same issue of Ambio. The declaration and supporting papers summarise what is currently known about the sources and movement of mercury in the atmosphere, the socioeconomic and health effects of mercury pollution on human populations, and its effects on the world's fisheries and wildlife.

Five other major findings in the declaration were:

- On average, three times more mercury is falling from the sky today than before the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago as a result of the increasing use of mercury and industrial emissions.

- Little is known about the behaviour of mercury in marine ecosystems and methylmercury in marine fish, the ingestion of which is the primary way most people at all levels of society worldwide are exposed to this highly toxic form of mercury.

- Methylmercury exposure now constitutes a public health problem in most regions of the world.

- Methylmercury levels in fish-eating birds and mammals in some parts of the world are reaching toxic levels, which may lead to population declines in these species and possibly in fish populations as well.

"The policy implications of these findings are clear," said James Wiener, a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse who served as technical chair for last summer's conference. "The declaration and detailed analyses presented in the five supporting papers clearly show that effective national and international policies are needed to combat this global problem."

Published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Ambio is widely recognised as an important international forum for debate on scientific, social, economic and cultural issues affecting the human environment.

Wiener said the Madison Declaration summarises a year-long effort by many of the world's leading mercury scientists, assembled into four expert panels, to review and synthesise the major mercury science findings. Every member of all four scientific panels endorsed the declaration, he said. Wiener added that all 1,150 participants at the conference were invited to express their confidence in the experts' findings, and the vast majority of those who did so agreed with the experts' conclusions.

However, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has said that in light of more recent and reliable science, the public should ignore this warning.

It says that, during the seven months since the 2006 summit, three new breakthrough scientific reports about the health implications of eating fish have made concerns about mercury mentioned in the conference's "Madison Declaration" largely irrelevant.

- In February 2007, The Lancet (The United Kingdom's prestigious medical journal) published research from the U.S. National Institutes of Health demonstrating a clear benefit to children whose mothers ate

large amounts of fish while pregnant. Researchers wrote that they could find "no evidence to lend support to the warnings of the U.S. advisory that pregnant women should limit their seafood consumption." Pregnant women in the study who ate the most fish - regardless of mercury levels - had children with the highest IQ's.

- In October 2006, a landmark Harvard study published in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) concluded that the health benefits of fish "greatly outweigh the risks," including those from trace amounts of mercury.

- Also in October 2006, the U.S. government's Institute of Medicine warned in a comprehensive report that a "spillover effect" from one-size-fits-all fish warnings could deny most consumers the health benefits of seafood consumption. Government advisories about mercury in seafood only apply to a small segment of the population. And in view of the Lancet study (above), even these limited messages may be ill-advised.

"Organisers of the mercury conference should have done more homework before publishing anything," said Center for Consumer Freedom Director of Research David Martosko. "Traces of mercury in fish are insignificant compared to the health benefits of eating seafood. Governments should be encouraging everyone, including pregnant women, to eat more fish. Period.

"Given recent scientific findings, any other message is irresponsible and - literally - last year's news."

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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