Pregnant women and children warned about mercury in tuna.

In her Vital Signs column in the New York Times(12/14, D6), Roni Caryn Rabin writes, "Consumers Union is urging pregnant women to avoid eating tuna altogether and advising small children to limit consumption after tests on dozens of cans and pouches of tuna found mercury in every sample. The tuna was bought in the New York metropolitan area and online." Rabin says "'White' tuna generally contained more mercury than 'light' tuna, but some light tuna contained enough that a woman of childbearing age eating less than a can a week would exceed federal recommendations for mercury consumption, the new Consumer Reports study says." Notably, "the average amount of mercury found...in white tuna samples was 0.427 parts per million, compared with the average 0.353 p.p.m. found in F.D.A. tests in 2002-04. The average in light tuna was 0.071 p.p.m., lower than the 0.118 p.p.m. found by the F.D.A."