The report, an annual undertaking since 2001, has been stressing on the high levels of mercury and carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in cetacean meat. Known collectively as Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT), these chemicals are resistant to degradation, and accumulate in fatty tissues. Through the process of biomagnification, concentrations become increasingly elevated at higher levels of the food chain. The apex long-lived predators of the food chain, these cetaceans, possess large lipid stores (blubber) that often accumulate high levels of contaminants which can be passed on to human consumers.
In seven published studies covering nine different species and over 350 samples, average levels exceeded Japan's provisional permitted levels for total mercury (0.4ppm) and methyl mercury (0.3ppm). In EIA's recent test, all 20 products tested exceeded the limit with a maximum mercury concentration of 19ppm (47.5 times Japan's advisory limit). Japan's advice on tolerable intake is set at 3.4μg MeHg/kg body weight for the general population, with an additional limit of 2.0μg/kg body weight for pregnant women, both of which exceed the international advisory level as well as those set in Europe and the US. Advisories have been prompting the government to reduce the intake levels, but their efforts and recommendations have been in vain.
“Having suffered the world's worst outbreak of mass mercury poisoning in Minamata in the 1950s and being one of the initial signatories to 2013's Minamata Convention, it is incomprehensible that the Japanese Government continues to fail to protect its citizens from mercury in foodstuffs." Clare Perry, Team Leader of EIA's Oceans Campaign, said.
Dangerous Diet strongly urges the Government of Japan to permanently ban toxic cetacean products for human consumption and to phase out all whale, dolphin and porpoise hunts, while working with hunters to find alternative livelihoods. In the interim, it should ensure wider public awareness, enforce the law to ensure products are labeled with the correct species information and conduct new medical studies of the health status of high-risk coastal communities.
