Faroe Islands – Message from the Sea – Interview with Pal Weihe

AIRED ON PBS JUNE 26, 2007

Dr. Pal Weihe is chief physician at the Department of Occupational and Public Health in the Faroese Hospital System. He studied epidemiology and occupational medicine in Denmark for 20 years before returning to his native Faroe Islands, where he spent the next 20 years studying the effects of mercury, a result of the Faroese tradition of eating whale meat.

In this interview with FRONTLINE/World reporter Serene Fang, Weihe talks about how his initial findings released in 1997 were received by a small protective community that has been hunting and eating pilot whales for more than a thousand years. Weihe’s study is now the benchmark for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He explains here what his study of children and adults on the islands revealed. <more>