The environmental group Sierra Club has long fought against pollution from power plants, but in its latest battle against coal, the group is using misguided rhetoric in an effort to link human exposure from power plant pollutants to tuna. In a new alarmist article to its supporters, Sierra club claims  tuna-sandwich-eaters throughout the country are now being poisoned by coal plants, going so far as to note that  “one-seventieth of a teaspoon [of mercury] can pollute a 20-acre lake to the point where its fish are unsafe.” 

An Oregon man named Allen Heckard once reportedly sued Michael Jordan and Nike because Mr. Heckard apparently looked too much like the basketball star in his Nike gear and the unwanted attention was apparently causing him "emotional pain and suffering." He thought a payment of $832 million would help him get over the horrors of being mistaken for arguably the greatest professional basketball player who ever lived.

This is of course an example of an absurd abuse of the legal system that naturally did not pan out for the plaintiff.

It’s been all over the web and twitter today but I just wanted to make sure anyone reporting on health and nutrition who’s checking in has seen the latest. A Harvard University Study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine adds to the overwhelming library of current, independent, peer reviewed science that says, mercury exposure from eating fish doesn't raise your risk of heart disease.

When the U.S.

GotMercury? and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project are attacking the tuna marketing campaign, Tuna The Wonderfish. Their claims are flat out lies, and the people behind Got Mercury?

Things have gotten rather quiet over at Good Housekeeping so we thought we'd ping 'em one more time. Keep in mind this is a publication that brags on its website that it "exercises strict editorial judgment."

September 29, 2010

Ms. Sarah Scrymser

Managing Editor

Good Housekeeping

300 West 57th Street

29th Floor

New York, NY 10019

VIA Email

Dear Ms. Scrymser,

In real time folks-- NBC San Diego executive producer Sage Waetjen Pierce has responded to our letter and while it appears the station has decided it plans to run the story it will now featuring NFI’s explanation of the flawed report.  Watch this space for updates.

Earlier this year NFI tangled with the Las Vegas Review-Journal over its reporting on a University of Nevada Las Vegas study about mercury in canned tuna.  You can click

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It's been a little more than a year since the Hearst Corporation ceased publication of the print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Since then, the newspaper has lived on as an online only product.  As a result, the online successor relies very heavily on unedited reader blogs instead of full-time journalists.

We don't mean to beat a dead horse, but every time Jeremy Piven comes out to tell his story about sushi and mercury, NFI feels the obligation to remind the rest of the world that we think his story doesn't amount to much.