(JP) Whale burgers may be hazardous to your health

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Whale burgers may be hazardous to your health

Thu May 9,10:38 AM ET

By Elaine Lies

 

TOKYO (Reuters) - Caution: whale meat is hazardous to

your health.

 

That message to Japan's finicky consumers could end up

being more damaging to Tokyo's hopes of resuming

commercial whaling than years of campaigning by

environmentalists focused on endangered species and

the slaughter of the intelligent mammals.

 

" If it became more widely known that this meat was

contaminated, people who want to eat whale would

probably stop, " said Koichi Haraguchi, a researcher at

Dai-Ichi College of Pharmaceutical Sciences in western

Japan.

 

" And people who think about trying it, wouldn't. "

 

So far, though, most Japanese consumers seem blithely

unaware that the whale meat they see as a gourmet

delight may be tainted with dangerous mercury and

toxic chemicals.

 

" The issue is largely unknown, that is the worst

thing, " said Nanami Kurasawa, secretary-general of the

Dolphin and Whale Action Network, an environmental

group.

 

" If people eat this contaminated meat unaware,

especially young women and pregnant women, it could

damage their health, or the health of their unborn

children. "

 

The health warnings could also be damaging to Japan's

push to resume commercial whaling, a campaign it is

mounting yet again at the annual meeting of the

International Whaling Commission (news - web sites)

(IWC), which began in Japan on April 25 and ends on

May 24.

 

Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986 in line

with an IWC moratorium, but began what it calls

scientific research whaling the next year.

 

Activists charge that much of this meat ends up on

restaurant tables and store shelves, although whale

now is an expensive, gourmet food that is only rarely

eaten.

 

Just as well, experts say, since some of it may be

tainted with mercury, cancer-causing dioxin, or

polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), industrial chemicals

linked to developmental delays and other health

problems in humans and accumulate in fats.

 

TRUTH IN LABELLING

 

Creamy whale blubber, which can sometimes be

dangerously high in PCBs, is considered a delicacy

among delicacies, while other fatty products, such as

whale bacon, are also widely available.

 

Researchers say there are few big problems with minke

meat, which comprises the bulk of the whale caught in

Japan's hunts.

 

Red minke whale meat is lean, lacking much of the fat

that could contain PCBs, and the whales roam the wider

oceans rather than more polluted coastal areas.

 

But even the red meat may not be totally safe if

marbled with fat that makes it look tender and juicy,

said Motoji Nagasawa, whale campaigner at Greenpeace

Japan.

 

Potentially more worrisome, false labelling means not

all the products for sale are guaranteed to be minke,

or even whale.

 

" If you really look, there's a lot of meat out there

on the shelves that isn't minke, " said researcher

Haraguchi.

 

Smaller species such as pilot whales, Baird's beaked

whales and dolphins, are not subject to IWC

restrictions.

 

As a result, stores unable to get their hands on

genuine -- and expensive -- minke sometimes settle for

something else.

 

" If it's actually labelled minke, it probably is, "

Haraguchi said. " But if it's only labelled 'whale' it

might be pilot whale or even dolphin. And this could

be quite contaminated. "

 

A random survey of 130 samples of whale products from

shops around Japan, conducted in 1999 by international

researchers, found serious contamination, according to

Japanese consumer group Safety First.

 

Levels for PCBs ranged from 0.8 parts per million

(ppm) for pilot whale blubber up to 8.9 ppm for

dolphin meat and blubber, compared with the 0.5 ppm

maximum permitted.

 

High concentrations of mercury and cancer-causing

dioxin were also found.

 

" The average person doesn't eat whale that often, so

if it's labelled 'minke' they can't distinguish the

real thing, as they might with other meats they eat

more often, " said Kurasawa.

 

" If people know, and still choose to eat it, that is

their choice, " said Kurasawa. " But if people don't

know and eat this unwittingly, it is not a good

thing. "

 

FOOD SAFETY

 

So far, ignorance appears to be bliss.

 

" You don't eat whale all that often, after all, " said

Hiromi Kase, who works for a company selling seaweed.

 

" If I started worrying about contamination in food

there'd be no end to it. Everything's in doubt these

days. "

 

Japan's consumers have had their trust in food safety

battered by a recent rash of scandals involving

mislabelled beef, pork and poultry and by an outbreak

of mad cow disease last year.

 

" Whales are at the top of the food pyramid, so that

any pollutants in the oceans concentrate in their

bodies, " said Yoko Tomiyama, chairwoman of the

Consumers Union of Japan.

 

" It is the duty of the government to tell people about

this. "

 

Prompted in part by such concerns, the Japanese Health

Ministry has just completed its first-ever tests of

whale meat, with a report due out shortly, an official

said.

 

" We want to guarantee food safety, to make sure things

such as mercury and PCBs aren't a problem, " a ministry

official said. " There just wasn't a specific reason to

look at this before. "

 

But he noted that with total Japanese consumption of

whale now, on average, only about 0.1 gram per day, it

is not the most pressing problem.

 

" We will look into the situation, get full reports,

and let consumers know so they can make a choice, " he

added. " If selling it in the market is unsafe, we will

stop this. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

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