• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Faroe Islands
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.457.8234; http://www.alaskaseafood.org/health/documents/Seafood-WeighingtheBenefitsandRisks.pdf

Worries about the effects on childhood development of mothers’ eating mercury-contaminated seafood have come mainly from studies of mothers and children in the Faroe Islands. There, women eat fish and pilot whale during pregnancy. Researchers reported that prenatal mercury exposure was significantly linked to deficits in various neurodevelopmental tests when the children were 14 years of age20. In contrast, a different study of mothers and children in the Seychelles Islands, where fish con-sumption is 10 times greater than in the U.S., researchers found no evidence of adverse effects of maternal fish and mercury intake on child development through 11 years of follow-up21,22. Why are the findings in these two large studies different? There is a catch. In the Faroe Islands, pregnant women are exposed to mercury from consuming pilot whale, which is high-ly contaminated with mercury and organic pollutants. Fish con-