With all of this radioactive water from Fukushima dumping into the Ocean, is it still safe to eat fish?
Nobody really knows for certain, but probably yes, it’s safe to eat.
Nicholas Fisher, a professor of marine sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said that, according to some radiation safety guidelines, people could safely eat 35 pounds of fish each year containing the level of cesium 137 detected in the Japanese fish.
“You’re not going to die from eating it right away,” he said, “but we’re getting to levels where I would think twice about eating it.” All the talk about radioactive food in Japan, which earlier banned milk and other farm products from areas near the crippled plant, has made some people uneasy, even thousands of miles away.
Putting this into perpective, eating fish from the Pacific wasn’t all that safe before Fukushima. Fish—particularly the large predatory fish we love eating—are universally contaminated with large quantities of mercury. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and teratogen. For years, the FDA has advised against young children and child-bearing aged women from eating more than two tiny portions of fish per week. The added risk from the Cesium? Probably not much larger than the risk most of us assume from mercury right now. From where did all of this mercury come? Industrial pollution—the burning of filthy fossil fuels primary among the industrial sources.
For those of you furious and fearful about Fukushima: Why aren’t you furious about the chemical pollution already poisoning our food supply? Why aren’t you as furious about the chicken, beef and eggs consistently contaminated with some of the most virulent and drug-resistant bacteria on the planet? Are you aware that US agribusiness has been arguing for years—knowing their filthy industrial farms and slaughterhouses are epidemiological disasters—that Americans would be safer if they were allowed to intentionally irradiate the hell out of their shit contaminated products. Why doesn’t this enrage you, and cause you to refuse to buy this crap?
I’m all for more monitoring of the American food supply—not just for radioactive contamination, but also pathogenic bacteria and industrial toxins that are far larger and ongoing problems we’ve ignored since (roughly) the Reagan administration. Muscular monitoring, with the right to shut down and bankrupt food companies that sell tainted food. Perhaps we’d all be better off if some of this anxious, nervous, energy were channeled into demanding such monitoring—rather than panic buying of seaweed.
Safe in the short term, sure. But salmon and tuna and other fish that have lifespans of more than a few years ACCUMULATE and RETAIN the toxins, effectively delivering the consumers much more than the temporaral measurements of a week or month or year.
Preach it, Golob. Your perspective is so welcome. Fukushima scares me (as a Midwestern American) not at all. But the vast square miles of cows living in shit and eating antibiotics scares the crap out of me.
You make it sound like Americans are dropping dead from food borne disease faster than ricksha wallahs at a Calcutta bizarre.
Fortunately, we’re not but fearmongering is fun! Enjoy your burgers folks.
Touché!
I am working hard to eliminate agribusiness filth from my food. But they can produce such a cheap product that it’s tempting, for example, to pay half as much for chicken. That shouldn’t be an excuse, but I’m just sayin’.
Woah, woah, woah. I have to call foul on referencing food irradiation in this context without further explanation. Irradiation != making radioactive. The only reason anyone objects to the practice is ignorant, knee-jerk fear of the word “radiation”.
Fear & vocal reaction over possible food-contamination due to Fukushima vs. relative silence on factory farming is an example of the ‘frog in a pot of water’ allegory–factory farming has been a slow boil–Fukushima dumps the frog into an already roiling pot.
@7 Except that deaths from food borne disease are at historic lows in the US and continue to drop. You have as much chance of being killed by lightning than a Jack in the Box.
But keep your fearmongering alive if it serves your political agenda.
oh my god this is getting ridiculous
“to put it into perspective, the pacific ocean is fucking gigantic”
that’s how that sentence should have gone
i’m furious and fearful that stranger writers think they can become nuclear physicists, engineers, and doctors all within a month
ease up there dr golob
Fuck yeah Golob.
Hear hear!
The mercury is no joke — another thing I’d like to see you mention is how many fisheries in the world have collapsed. When you look at the fish population levels and the human population levels, it’s pretty hard not to conclude that Malthus may have been on to something.
But speaking of putting the ocean’s health in perspective, I can’t do any better than this video which is a MUST WATCH:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0VHC1-DO…
Help! Now I’m afraid to eat anything!
Excellent post. I am angry, but in the meantime, really, what do I eat?
“Why aren’t you furious about the chemical pollution already poisoning our food supply?”
Um…I sure am–doesn’t take away from my advocacy against unsafe practices with nukes and recognizing denial and hubris when I see it.
thanks for introducing a little reason around this issue. i’d like to also point out that our government, france, and britain intentionally detonated nuclear explosives and conducted testing in the pacific for about 50 years. why aren’t we pissed about radiation in our fish and food (and other people’s homes) from that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPan…
Writing for a newspaper is fine and good, but giving medical advice about toxic substances like ‘probably safe’, unless you’re qualified, is probably not a good idea. Whether or not you care about the outcome.
Excoriating people for not expressing more concern about chemical toxins is deeply ironic. Most of us who care are very concerned about all of the toxins in the environment. Some of them are there because noone knew. The rest are there because someone knew, but was less concerned about wasting the planet and extincting thousands of -other- lifeforms than about profit and power. We’re not looking the other way, so Get off it Golob.
Actual medical experts at Physicians for Social Responsibility have already spoken up about radioactive food. “PSR also expressed alarm over the level of misinformation circulating in press reports about the degree to which radiation exposure can be considered ‘safe’…. According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual’s risk for the development of cancer.”
Tools of the industry like IAEA, and all the True Believers, would like us all to forget that that is the scientific assessment.
Readers can find the whole article on the Physicians for Social Responsibility website, here:
http://www.psr.org/news-events/press-rel…