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“When I went to my shrink for the first time I told him that...I was worried about my daughter, and about how mean I was to her. For some reason, all my craziness channeled itself in her direction.” Chicago Tribune: “The fact that we poisoned our air and our oceans to such an extent that we can't eat a damn tuna sandwich is just diabolical," said Ayelet Waldman, a noted mystery author whose daughter was diagnosed with mercury poisoning at age 5 after frequently eating tuna. Waldman, of Berkeley, Calif., said that when her daughter, Sophie, was 5, she seemed to stop learning. She had trouble sounding out words she had already learned. She forgot how to tie her shoes. During a heavy metals screening in 2000, Sophie showed high mercury levels, her mother said. After Sophie's mother consulted with a San Francisco internist, Dr. Jane Hightower, one of Sophie's favorite meals was identified as the culprit: She was eating a tuna sandwich a week made with canned albacore. Further tests by Hightower confirmed high mercury levels in Sophie, the doctor said. When Sophie quit eating tuna, she started learning again, her mother said. "She seemed to us like she was a different kid." Waldman, Sophie's mother, said that if there had been proper warnings years ago, she never would have fed so much canned tuna to her daughter, now 11. Today, Waldman said, she keeps track of how much fish her daughter eats and consults an environmental group's Web site to find mercury levels in various fish. (CT - December 11, 2005) Response: It is highly disturbing that CT would worry mothers and seek to influence public policy by uncritically recycling the anecdotal "poisoning" of Sophie Chabon, daughter of novelists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. The story originally appeared several years earlier in the San Francisco Chronicle, and has since become a staple for mercury-alarm journalism. The Sophie Chabon Case
Poisoned tuna? A more serious examination of the Sophie Chabon case poses the question whether she could have actually suffered -- and quickly recovered -- from acute MeHg poisoning after ingesting small amounts of tuna over a short span. Scientifically, nothing about the case makes any sense. The San Francisco Chronicle earlier reported Sophie’s miraculous recovery, as recounted by Waldman: [Five-year old Sophie’s’] lively progress in reading and other accomplishments dipped. "She was happily tying her own shoes, and suddenly she just lost that skill. She seemed like she was beginning to read. Then she plateaued. She never progressed for a year,'' Waldman recalled. First, according to Professor Tom Clarkson, the nation’s foremost expert on health impacts of mercury toxicity, Sophie’s reputed symptoms and reversal are not characteristic of any known kind of MeHg poisoning. Clinically diagnosed effects of developmental brain damage due to mercury poisoning are permanent. Also, even though Hightower and Sophie’s parents say that changes in hair clued them to mercury, in actual incidents of Hg poisoning changes in hair (brittleness, falling out) have never been reported as symptomatic. Secondly, CT left unreported and unexamined the measured mercury levels for the other Chabon children and Ayelet Waldman herself. Reviewing the paper by Hightower and Moore (2003) (discussed in Sec. 9), one can easily identify blood mercury levels recorded for Sophie Chabon (13 ppb), her younger brother Zeke Chabon (less than 5 ppb) and Ayelet Waldman (7.4 ppb). Also, Hightower listed Sophie as having consumed about eight 6-oz. servings of canned tuna per month, or about two cans of tuna per week for one year duration -- not the single albacore tuna sandwich a week reported by CT . Zeke, 3 years old at that time, had not consumed any fish meals, yet his mercury level was recorded at <5 ppb. This level is significantly higher than the mean (0.3 ppb) for children aged 1-5 surveyed by the CDC. Levels for both Sophie and Ayelet Waldman exceeded EPA's conservative RfD (5.8 ppb in blood, or 1.0 ppm in hair), but were no where near lowest levels (216 ppb) recorded for Minamata-like symptoms. Also remember, EPA’s RfD is based on 70 years of daily consumption. Sophie was only five years old, so there was no increased or decreased risk. The essential and paramount point is, nothing in the vast mercury literature reports clinical manifestations for mercury poisoning at levels recorded for Sophie, after any duration of consumption. Even Amazon rainforest natives with hair levels at mean average of 21 ppm, and as high as 302 ppm, showed no signs of toxicity. Surveys report that 87% of Japanese exceed EPA’s RfD; so merely exceeding this level does not mean MeHg poisoning. Also, compare Sophie’s tuna consumption rate of 8 servings per month with the 12-14 fish meals per week in the Seychelles Islands. Then factor that Hong Kong Chinese children have one of the highest seafood consumption rates in the world, with no reported harm. If the case of Sophie Chabon is an actual one, where is the epidemic of developmental disabilities that should be present in persistent fish consuming societies like Japan, Seychelles, Hong Kong, Amazonia or even the Faroes? Answer: nowhere, at no time. (see Sec. 20) Directly put, the Sophie case seems little more than a single anecdotal report from a couple of parents about one child – so what? The Waldman confessional However, perhaps the more serious omission by CT – particularly for mothers and pregnant women – is Waldman’s openly self-reported tragic relationship with Sophie. Ayelet Waldman’s volitional public introspections recorded on her internet blog, Salon.com and elsewhere may reveal that little Sophie’s perceived arrested development at age five could reasonably be attributed to something other than tuna sandwiches. A few excerpts suffice [some emphasis added]: So when Sophie was still painstakingly sounding out words at age 7, I ended up calling my mother, completely distraught. "She's only reading at a first-grade level!" I wailed. There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments. Finally my mother said, "Honey, she's in first grade." Waldman herself implies that one could not be faulted for wondering if any child could function normally in the difficult social setting and interactions described, let alone excel or meet high parental expectations – tuna sandwiches or not. Conclusion
The Tribune series represents what the late Julian Simon called ‘false bad news.” Its price in economic loss, loss of public confidence, misguided policies and damage to public health – particularly of women and their children – has yet to be fully calculated. But those costs are potentially fearfully high, and growing. By not exploring and reporting the context and veracity of Ayelet Waldman’s anecdotal “evidence” for her daughter’s reputed “poisoning” by tuna ingestion, the Chicago Tribune's readers and public officials have been seriously mislead by the celebrated, unlikely mercury "poisoning" of Sophie Chabon. |
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