FDA claims no need to test Pacific fish for radioactivity

[FBaggins]

North Pacific fish are so unlikely to be contaminated by radioactive material from the crippled nuclear plant in Japan that there's no reason to test them, state and federal officials said this week. Even with dangerous levels of radiation reported recently just off the coast from the Fukushima reactor complex, the ocean is so huge and Alaska fisheries so far away that there is no realistic threat, said FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey. The Food and Drug Administration has oversight of the nation's food supplies.

...snip...

Meanwhile, the most recent results of monitoring of atmospheric fallout in Alaska show large declines since the first weeks of the crisis. A portable radiation monitor on emergency deployment to Dutch Harbor by the EPA recorded the highest levels of iodine-131 of any of the 100-plus monitors in the EPA's RadNet system. Those readings were taken March 19, of 2.42 picocuries per cubic meter of air, and March 20, of 2.8 picocuries. Among 14 samples collected through April 2, no I-131 was detected three times, and there never was more than a tenth the level of the two elevated samples.


Similarly, the deployable monitor in Nome recorded the highest reading in the United States of cesium-131, 0.13 picocuries per cubic meter of air, on March 24. Thirteen samples since then, through April 5, detected none. Only one air filter from the EPA monitor in Anchorage has been analyzed by the EPA lab in Montgomery, Ala. That was a sample collected March 21, and showed so little total radioactivity -- 0.006 picocuries per cubic meter of air -- that it wasn't analyzed further to learn which radioactive isotopes were present, the EPA said this week.

http://www.adn.com/2011/04/16/1813982/fda-claims-no-need-to-test-pacific.htmlt

What? Now that can't be true. I read right here on DU that this was worse than Chernobyl. But the fallout from Chernobyl was much higher in the US than what is reported here even though it's much farther away. Heck... it was twice that high in New York.

Something has to be wrong.

[flamingdem]

1. YET.

North Pacific fish are so unlikely to be contaminated by radioactive material from the crippled nuclear plant in Japan YET

[FBaggins]

2. Nope... ever.

It's a big ocean fd... and radioactive particles have no particular affinity for each other.

[flamingdem]

3. 3 melting cores, seaweed in Vancouver w/increase iodine, no end in sight

Vancouver Sun, April 5, 2011 at 7:17 pm EDT:

… Meanwhile, seaweed samples were still showing increasing iodine-131 as of March 28, according to data provided by .

In samples of dehydrated seaweed taken on March 15 near the North Vancouver SeaBus terminal, the count was zero; on March 22 it was 310 Bq per kilogram; and by March 28 it was 380 Bq/kg.

[FBaggins]

8. So? We're talking about the Pacific Ocean here.

You need to work on you perspective. Try adding up every ounce of material in all three cores and comparing it to just the uranium that's already in the Pacific naturally.

And they're "melted"... Not "melting"

[flamingdem]

12. The plus to this will be a reduction in Japanese fishing and overfishing

and killing of dolphins if we're lucky.

[FBaggins]

13. Probably not.

It'll reduce fishing within some miles of the plant, but increase it in other areas to compensate.

What WILL likely reduce the catch is the number of destroyed fishing boats and homeless/dead fishermen - combined with the reduced demand of a fractured economy.

[PDJane]

4. Don't eat fish or seafood.

It's no longer healthy to do so. Freshwater fish all over north America is contaminated with mercury. The Gulf fish is contaminated with oil and dispersants. All ocean fish are overfished, and they are often sent all over the damn world for processing. China's fresh water is almost non-existent, fish from Viet Nam is still contaminated with Agent Orange....time to stop eating the stuff, much as I like it.

[flamingdem]

5. Agree. And with chicken having staph best to know the source or buy organic nt

[TheMadMonk]

6. Indeed. Straight up heavy metal, petrochemical, and human efluent...

...pollution are all individually and collectively far, far greater threats than any nuclear contamination from Fukushima, except perhaps for seafood taken within tens of kilometres of the contaminated outflow.


If you ate enough fish to present a radiological danger, the mercury content would leave you in no fit state to even know you had cancer let alone worry about it.

[flamingdem]

7. No offense but that's an idiotic statement

I will not eat any fish that might give me an internal dose of cesium.

Don't be ridiculous with fantasies that this is worse than staph, etc. You can SURVIVE that, cancer not so much.

[TheMadMonk]

15. And that my friend is an ignorant statement.

Your body is chock full of potasium-40 and carbon-14 both of which give you a far higher dose of internal radiation day in, day out for every day of your existence than anything you might pick up from a fish caught anywhere but right on top of the discharge point.

Within 10km of the outflow, the radioactive efluent is diluted by about 100k to 1. 10 million to 1 at 100km.

Whilst large in human terms, and certainly something we need to be stopping as soon as possible, the overal effect on the larger oceanic environment (and us as the ultimate consumer) is at least as vanishingly small as that of nuclear testing last century.


Staph may be survivable. Having your baby's brain turned to swiss cheese by environmental mercury ain't so much fun. Then there's the argument over estrogens and their mimics and precocious puberty. Worst case, excessive petrochemical (at least in combination with dispersants) exposure appears to guarantee a reduction in life potential of up to thirty years. You should know my mantra on coal by now.

[kestrel91316]

9. You can't find what you don't look for. They better have a litle surveillance program IMHO.

[Nihil]

14. That's exactly how the US beef market has maintained sales ...

... despite known problems with BSE outbreaks ...

Don't look and you can't find.
Better yet, prevent anyone else looking and/or reporting their findings.

:-(

[Odin2005]

10. I'd me more concerned about mercury.

The pacific is huge enough to dilute any radiation to nothing.

[flamingdem]

11. Anyone with a brain will avoid fish from Japan for a looong time

because there is no reason to trust where it is from and I've already read so many lies put out by all concerned including restaurants that claim to "test".

It will amount to a thinning of the herd - those who are gullible will perish because cesium and other isotopes are relentless in the system. Mercury, well if you lay off the tuna and other known problem fish you can avoid it.