(Fukushima) The big question: How safe is fish to eat?

[kristopher]

The big question: How safe is fish to eat?
March 27, 2012
By TAKASHI SUGIMOTO / Staff Writer

For a fish-eating nation like Japan, research findings on cesium contamination in marine life since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture a year ago is quite disconcerting.

Sea creatures dwelling on the ocean floor continue to show high levels of contamination.

...

Although the concentration of radioactive substances in seawater has gradually dropped to below detectable levels, the contamination has begun to gradually sink to the ocean floor, which is host to much marine life.

...

Over a prolonged period, higher cesium concentrations are found all the way up in the marine food chain.

"Fish are able to expel cesium from their body at some point, but those living on the ocean floor will continue becoming contaminated so long as they eat contaminated food," says Takashi Ishimaru, a professor at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.

Because the ocean floor is...

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201203270001

Cesium levels in animals around Chernobyl fail to drop
By ICHIRO MATSUO / Staff Writer

Wildlife in an animal sanctuary in Belarus, close to the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, continues to show high levels of accumulated radioactive cesium, researchers say.

A similar pattern has emerged in Japan's Fukushima Prefecture, where a meltdown occurred at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake. There, surveys show that wild boar and other animals are displaying cesium levels in excess of what is deemed safe for human consumption.

The sanctuary in Belarus, called the Polessie State Radiation and Ecological Reserve, covers 2,165 square kilometers. It was established north of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1988.

To this day, the area remains highly contaminated. Of the total amount of cesium-137 that fell on Belarus, 30 percent, or 4,810 terabecquerels (1 terabecquerel is a trillion becquerels), fell on the area where the preserve is located, while 70 percent, (or 444 terabecquerels) of the strontium-90 fallout landed there.

Most of the plutonium fallout, 14.8 terabecquerels...

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/analysis/AJ201203280003

[Cleita]

1. Maybe they need to take a geiger counter when they shop.

Thom Hartmann mentioned doing this when he was living in Germany and the Chernobyl incident happened.

[TheMadMonk]

2. The mercury is probably more likely to get you than the rads.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112710716

[kristopher]

3. It isn't an either/or proposition

And that study certainly doesn't mean that there is a safe dose for radiation exposure. You are grossly overstating the value of the results to consider it as more than indicative.

[TheMadMonk]

4. Mercury will get you BEFORE the rads are likely to then.

Of course not, pure random chance does allow that a single radioactive particle in exactly the wrong place might trigger a fatal cancer. FFS even a bloody neutrino might manage it.

HOWEVER, if the results of that study do pan out, given levels of low level exposure are CONSIDERABLY SAFER than has been previously assumed.

[kristopher]

5. That is a pretty funky view of risk assessment.

I've never met anyone that endorses the consumption of toxins and poisons except nuclear power proponents. Since we have absolutely no need for nuclear power it's an absolutely sick value position to stake out, IMO.

[TheMadMonk]

6. And I am sick to fucking death of people with an agenda (YOU)...

...DELIBERATELY misrepresenting other people's words in order to futher that agenda.

I ENDORSED FUCKING NOTHING.

I SAID ONE WAS LIKELY LESS HARMFUL THAN THE OTHER.

NO! what IS a sick position to stake out is the one which offers up the greatest amount of DEMONSTRABLE continuing harm, in the hope that it will incentivise people to conform to YOUR will.

I am often wrong or mistaken. However, I am never DELIBERATELY DISHONEST.

[kristopher]

7. You're trying to make the consumption of toxins in food sound acceptable.

And you are doing it in order to further the interests of a corporate cabal that doesn't give a hoot about the consequences of the use of their product. You can choose not call that "deliberately dishonest" if you wish, but I'll still stick with what I actually said, "Since we have absolutely no need for nuclear power it's an absolutely sick value position to stake out, IMO."

If you don't like being called on your attempt to whitewash the effects of radioactive contamination of a nation's food supply then perhaps you should restrain yourself when you have to urge to engage in the activity.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Pretty funny from somebody down-playing the risk from mercury.

Where's the EPA advisory for Iodine and Cesium, genius?

[kristopher]

10. Does the EPA have jurisdiction in Japan?

The problem in the OP is in Japanese waters.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201203270001


Trying to use the risks from mercury to somehow make the risk identified in the OP is an attempt to "downplay risk". Not wanting to have the thread hijacked isn't downplaying anything.

And don't worry, no one will ever accuse you of being a genius.

[Dead_Parrot]

12. You were suggesting here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=10835

That a visit to the doctor might be in order. Are you claiming that you are more knowledgeable that the EPA, Or just fear-mongering?

[kristopher]

13. Neither

I was responding to a worried person with the suggestion that a discussion with a trusted physician was a better place to take the concerns about her family than to an anonymous internet that is crawling with anonymous posters promoting the nuclear industry.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Rather than saying the EPA aren't concerned

Why is that, Kris?

[Dead_Parrot]

15. Crickets...

You had time to post a new thread, kris. Why no answer?

[TheMadMonk]

9. And I say again. DON'T PUT FUCKING WORDS IN MY MOUTH.

I am not making any attempt whatsoever to make the consumption of toxins acceptable.

But there you are yet again with the deliberate dishonesty. Not in expressing your own opinion, (you're perfectly entitled to it) but in your repeated deliberate twisting of my words to say what YOU want them to say, rather than what I (or simple semantic analysis) tell you they fucking well DO mean.

OK. I'm calling YOU out. PRODUCE THE FUCKING EVIDENCE. Show me the people dropping like flies from all that radioactive poison. Come on. Line those cancer riddled corpses up like cordwood.

The simple truth is, that even in the most radioactively contaminated places in the old USSR, the people are dying of (and suffering from) what looks a hell of a lot more like Minimata Disease (heavy metal poisoning) than anything at all to do with radiation.

Which rather neatly brings me back to my original premise that IF you are going to eat fish, then the mercury will most likely get you before the radiation.

[kristopher]

11. And I'm saying again, stop trying to legitimize the pollution of a nation's food supply.

You can't possibly succeed. All you are doing is establishing a clear picture of a very perverse value system. You've been trotting out that same kind of false rationalization since Fukushima first happened. At least, that is the kind of argument you've been making when you weren't denying that there was even a problem.

[PamW]

16. Today's Vocabulary Lesson

Kris,

There is a difference between "legitimize" and keeping things in "perspective":

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legitimize

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perspective%5B2%5D

PamW