New warning for canned tuna: Mercury risk for pregnant women too high, Consumer Reports says.

Byline: Michael Hawthorne

Jun. 6--The chance that canned tuna will contain high levels of mercury is great enough that pregnant women should never eat it, according to new recommendations from a leading consumer group. Officials at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said they decided to recommend a tuna-free diet for pregnant women based on a Tribune investigative series on mercury in fish and the latest testing by the Food and Drug Administration. The newspaper reported late last year that about 15 percent of canned light tuna--the kind of tuna touted by the FDA as a low-mercury option--is made with a species that often contains high amounts of the toxic metal. FDA officials later revealed that 6 percent of canned light tuna sampled between 2001 and 2005…