Everyone knows what happens when you under-inflate a basketball. It just doesn’t bounce.

But this is what editorial writers seem to want to do with the fish consumption rate. Instead of using a fish consumption rate that would protect most people who eat seafood, most argued that we should only go halfway. They said we need to know what the average seafood eater eats, and set the rate there.

But, that ball just doesn’t bounce.

The reason the fish consumption rate needs to be set at the high end of average fish consumption is because it needs to protect as many people as possible.

The best way to think about this is an umbrella:

The fish consumption rate isn’t meant to reflect the average, it is meant to protect as many people as possible. Even people who eat just a bit more than average, like sports fisherman or just people who love seafood, would be protected by a good rate.

As Russ Hepfer, vice chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe recently said:

The fish consumption and cancer risk rates are supposed to protect those who need it the most: children, women of childbearing age, Indians, Asian and Pacific Islanders, sport fishermen and anyone who likes to eat local fish and shellfish. When the most vulnerable among us is protected, so is everyone else.

And, it terms of the validity of the studies that were used to set the rates? The science is good there.