The Food and Drug Administration told California this week that the state's attempt to require mercury warnings on tuna conflicts with federal law. California's attorney general disputed the FDA letter Friday, and said it was an attempt to stop a lawsuit the state has filed against tuna companies over the warnings. "The federal government has no authority to prevent California, or any state, from requiring warnings that provide truthful, important information to consumers," said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
A year ago, Lockyer sued the nation's three largest canned tuna companies to enforce Proposition 65, California's 1986 law requiring businesses to provide "clear and reasonable" warnings when they expose consumers to known reproductive toxins, such as mercury. The companies are Tri-Union Seafoods, maker of Chicken of the Sea; Del Monte, maker of Starkist; and Bumble Bee Seafoods, maker of Bumble Bee. The FDA letter, written by Commissioner Lester Crawford on Aug. 12, argues that the warnings Lockyer is seeking are pre-empted under federal law. Such warnings "frustrate the carefully considered federal approach to advising consumers of both the benefits and possible risks of eating fish and shellfish," Crawford's letter says.
The letter says the FDA has determined that the best way to warn consumers about health risks is with advisories, targeted to particular audiences, delivered by doctors or specific media outlets. General warning labels can overexpose consumers to warnings, or scare the wrong audience away from food they should be eating, the letter says. Dresslar said many people never see FDA advisories, and providing a posted warning in a supermarket or a label on a can would inform many more people about potential reproductive problems from mercury.
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