Risk assessment and management of chemical contaminants in fishery products consumed in the USA.

Abstract

In the USA a small proportion of fishery products are contaminated with appreciable amounts of potentially hazardous contaminants. However, risks to consumers are not generally high. Inorganic contaminants with the greatest potential for toxicity are antimony, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, selenium and sulfites. Among organic compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, several chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides, certain processing-related and aquaculture-related contaminants pose potential risks for consumers. Log-normal distributions appear to provide good descriptions of the pattern of variation of contaminant concentrations among different geographic areas, and some contaminants (mostly organic) appear to be much more variable than others. This variability offers a solution for reduction of exposure through restricting the harvest of aquatic organisms from specific sites, and by excluding certain species. It is recommended that: (i) existing State and Federal regulations and environmental monitoring be strengthened and enforced to minimize contamination of the aquatic environment; (ii) a program of shared responsibility be instituted, where Federal agencies develop a set of monitoring and inspection practices and state agencies assume responsibility for primary control, site closures and advisories issue; (iii) research and public education by government agencies and health professionals be expanded to determine actual risks and approaches to manage them; (iv) mandatory labeling be considered for specific contaminants; (v) a better system requiring international agreements be developed in order to minimize the differences among various national regulatory approaches.