When the subject of possible health hazards from methylmercury in fish comes up in media reports, the seafood lobby often responds aggressively with its own strongly held point of view. They assert that most of the facts reported by journalists are not true: In their version of reality, the benefits of eating fish are enormous, the risk from mercury exposure is trivial, there is a huge margin of safety between possible exposures and levels that pose any risk, no one has ever been harmed by methylmercury in commercially sold fish, and mercury warnings harm public health by discouraging fish consumption.