GotMercury.org and Participant Media provide online tool for seafood eaters to check mercury exposure
The new The Cove – GotMercury online mercury-in-seafood calculator is being launched today with the Lionsgate Home Entertainment DVD release of the award-winning documentary The Cove. The Got Mercury project creates awareness of the dangers of mercury in seafood and is one of the initiatives of Participant Media’s social action campaign for The Cove. The calculator is available at www.GotMercury.org. and www.takepart.com/GotMercury and A simpler mobile cell phone version is available at www.gotmercury.mobi. The DVD is widely available on line and in stores nationwide.
A new bonus feature of The Cove DVD is “Mercury Rising “ a short documentary that explores the dangers of mercury contamination as it affects society and the global environment. GotMercury and its mercury-in-fish calculator are highlighted in “Mercury Rising”
“The Cove version of the GotMercury calculator will help fish and sushi eaters who are worried about mercury levels in seafood make healthier choices,” said Buffy Martin Tarbox, Campaign Coordinator for the GotMercury Project of Turtle Island Restoration Network.
To use The Cove – GotMercury calculator, a person enters their weight, fish type, serving size, and clicks the calculator button. The estimated mercury exposure is based on the most recent U.S. government advisories for mercury-in-fish.
The Cove has mobilized people around the world to call for an end to the slaughter of 23,000 dolphins every year off the coast of Japan. The dolphin meat, containing toxic levels of mercury, is being sold as food in Japan, often times labeled as whale meat.
In the U. S., eating tuna, swordfish and other high-mercury fish is the number one source of mercury exposure. Women aged 18 to 45 and children are advised to limit consumption of canned, fresh and frozen tuna and not to eat swordfish, shark, tilefish and king mackerel due to mercury contamination. See the FDA Advisory
Tuna of all types is the number one source of mercury in the American diet – contributing more than one-third of all mercury ingested from fish. Of that, about 16 percent comes from canned albacore, 16 percent from canned light tuna, and about 6 percent from fresh/frozen – according to scientists’ estimates. Almost all fish from the ocean and freshwater fish contain mercury. Larger fish tend to have higher concentrations of mercury and pose more of a health threat to humans who eat fish, particularly women and children.
About GotMercury.org
Founded in 2002, Got Mercury offers its free on-line mercury calculator in English and Spanish so people can estimate their weekly mercury exposure based on their weight and the types of fish eaten. See www.gotmercury.org. Also available free of charge is a mercury calculator for mobile devices to help take the guesswork out of making lower mercury fish choices: www.gotmercury.mobi
About The Cove
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, The Cove follows a high-tech dive team on a mission to discover the truth about the international dolphin capture trade as practiced in Taiji, Japan. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide.
About Participant Media
Participant Media is a Los Angeles-based entertainment company that focuses on socially relevant, commercially viable feature films, documentaries and television, as well as publishing and digital media. Participant Media is headed by CEO Jim Berk and was founded in 2004 by philanthropist Jeff Skoll, who serves as Chairman. Ricky Strauss is President.
Participant exists to tell compelling, entertaining stories that bring to the forefront real issues that shape our lives. For each of its projects, Participant creates extensive social action and advocacy programs which provide ideas and tools to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action. Participant’s films include The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson’s War, Darfur Now, An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck., Syriana, Standard Operating Procedure, The Visitor, The Soloist, Food, Inc., The Cove and The Informant!
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