Now canned tuna is BANNED, activists demand – as toxic levels of mercury are detected in store cupboard favorite

Activists are calling for a complete ban on serving canned tuna in hospitals and schools after toxic levels of mercury were discovered in the pantry favorite.

The environmentalists also accuse food safety agencies and tuna companies of “cynical lobbying” that “serves economic interests… at the expense of health.”

Over the past 50 years, the mercury threshold for tuna has been three times higher than for other fish, “without the slightest health reason,” she added, a spokesperson for Bloom, which focuses on preserving the marine environment.

The calls come after Bloom and consumer rights organization Foodwatch published an alarming report showing how widespread the contamination is.

As revealed by MailOnline last week, tests on almost 150 cans bought in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Britain found they all contained mercury and 57 percent exceeded safe limits for many fish.

Exposure to the metal can stunt brain development, cause life-threatening lung damage and cancer, and cause birth defects if consumed by pregnant women.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), which considers it a major public health problem, on par with asbestos and arsenic.

The researchers claimed they had discovered “a colossal risk to public health” and urged governments to take “urgent” action.

Research has shown that some forms of mercury in very high doses can cause the development of various types of tumors in rats and mice.

The average European consumes more than 2.8 kilos of tuna per year, or about 25 cans.

Karine Jacquemart, CEO of consumer rights organization Foodwatch France, said: ‘What we end up with on our plate is a huge public health risk that is not being taken seriously.

‘We will not give up until we have a more protective European standard.’

About four-fifths of the mercury released into the atmosphere from natural and human causes, such as burning coal, ends up in the ocean, where some is converted by small organisms into a toxic compound known as methylmercury.

This methylmercury works its way up the food chain and accumulates in high concentrations in top predators.

Because tuna – and other predators or longer-lived species such as sharks or swordfish – are higher on the food chain, they eat smaller fish and accumulate more mercury over time.

Under current EU and UK legislation, the limit for mercury in tuna is 1 mg/kg and 0.3 mg/kg for other fish such as cod.

But the canning process, according to Bloom, means doubling or tripling the mercury concentration.

Exposure to the metal can stunt brain development, cause life-threatening lung damage and has been linked to certain cancers

In a statement, Bloom said: “Since the 1970s, public authorities and the powerful tuna lobby have consciously chosen to advance the economic interests of industrial tuna fishing at the expense of the health of more than hundreds of million tuna consumers in Europe.

‘This cynical lobbying has resulted in the setting of an ‘acceptable’ mercury threshold that is three times higher for tuna than for other fish species such as cod, without the slightest health rationale for a different threshold.’

Bloom and Foodwatch are calling for a stricter limit for mercury in tuna, as for other species, of 0.3 mg/kg instead of the current 1 mg/kg.

And they say tuna products should be banned from hospitals – including maternity wards – schools and care homes to protect vulnerable people.

Mark Willis, head of chemical contaminants at the UK Food Standards Agency, told The Independent: ‘We advise those who want to become pregnant or are pregnant to consume no more than four cans of tuna per week or no more than two tuna steaks per week.

‘This is because tuna contains higher levels of mercury than other fish.’

A spokesperson for Europêche, which represents fishing fleets, denied the claims in the report, calling it “misleading.”

They added: ‘Canned tuna products offered to EU consumers strictly comply with European regulations, which are based on scientific criteria for safe maximum daily intake.

‘These thresholds have been carefully determined by experts from the European Food Safety Authority to ensure consumer safety.’