Fukushima Radiation Now Detected in the U.S. Food Supply

Published on June 1, 2012 by admin   ·   No Comments

WorldTruth.tv

Scores of experts and analysts have feared for months that it would happen, and now it has: Radiation from the heavily damaged nuclear power plants at Japan’s Fukushima complex has made it into the seafood chain off the coast of America.

Small amounts of cesium-137 and cesium-134, both radioactive elements released after a major earthquake-caused tsunami damaged at least three reactors at the site along Japan’s northeastern coast in March 2011, have been found in at least 15 tuna that were recently caught off the coast of California, scientists have said.

The finding suggests that the fish may have carried the contamination across the Pacific Ocean faster than wind or water has been able to do, and months earlier than wind and water brought debris from the damaged nuclear plant across the ocean to the shores of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, said Reuters.

Researchers said that, so far, the levels of cesium found in the fish are not high enough to harm humans if consumed, according to data published in the journalProceedingsof theNational Academy of Sciences.

Daniel Madigan ofStanford University‘s Hopkins Marine Station did not make a determination about the safety of the fish, though he did say the amounts of radiation detected in the tuna are far less than Japan’s safety limit.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone what’s safe to eat or what’s not safe to eat,” Madigan toldReuters. “It’s become clear that some people feel that any amount of radioactivity, in their minds, is bad and they’d like to avoid it. But compared to what’s there naturally [...] and what’s established as safety limits, it’s not a large amount at all.”

Madigan said researchers found higher levels of two radioactive isotopes of the cesium element, 137 – which was present in the eastern Pacific before the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi – and 134, which is caused only by manmade activities and wasn’t present before the tsunami smashed into the plant.

Since cesium 134 only exists through human activity, such as nuclear power plants and the manufacture of nuclear weapons, Madigan’s team figured the 134 they were measuring had to have come from Fukushima.

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