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.

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.

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…