Story Outline

Fish Dinner From a news story by San Francisco CBS 5 Reporter Barbara Roger September 2004

I. Wendy Moro was sick

A. Wendy was very weak and tired.
B. Wendy was careful to eat a good diet of foods.
C. Wendy went to many doctors.
D. The doctors couldn’t find the cause of her tiredness and vertigo.

II. Wendy went to Dr. Jane Hightower

A. Dr. Hightower asked Wendy about her diet.
B. Wendy said she ate fish several times a week.
C. Dr. Hightower found that Wendy was eating fish with high mercury content in their bodies.

III. Dr. Hightower investigated

A. Dr. Hightower began testing her patients for mercury in their bodies.
B. Dr. Hightower’s patients ate substantial amounts of fish.
C. An overwhelming majority of the patients tested high for mercury in their bodies.
D. Dr. Hightower published her findings.
E. There is a lot of debate about how much fish is safe to eat.

IV. The San Francisco Chronicle and the TV CBS 5 decided to investigate

A. They drove to many fish markets in the San Francisco Bay area.
B. The fish they purchased was sent to a lab in Washington to be tested.
C. Only the halibut was below the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) safe level of 38 micrograms of mercury a week.
D. Sea bass had almost twice that level of mercury.
E. Swordfish had nearly six times the EPA’s safe mercury level for a week.
F. These portions of fish were just single servings, not a week’s worth of fish.

V. What’s Next?

A. Mercury has been linked to many symptoms of illness.
B. Wendy Moro feels frustrated because she wants the government to tell the public about this.
C. Wendy Moro wonders “…is anybody listening?”