Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Caught Off California Coast
October 2, 2013
Every Bluefin tuna tested in the waters off California has shown to be contaminated with radiation that originated in Fukushima. Every single one.
Over a year ago, in May of 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported on a Stanford University study. Daniel
Madigan, a marine ecologist who led the study, was quoted as saying,
“The tuna packaged it up (the radiation) and brought it across the
world’s largest ocean. We were definitely surprised to see it at all and
even more surprised to see it in every one we measured.”
Another member of the study group, Marine biologist Nicholas Fisher at Stony Brook University in New York State reported, “We found that absolutely every one of them had comparable concentrations of cesium 134 and cesium 137.”
That was over a year ago. The fish that were tested had relatively little exposure to the radioactive waste being dumped into the ocean following the nuclear melt-through that
occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March of 2011. Since that
time, the flow of radioactive contaminants dumping into the ocean has
continued unabated. Fish arriving at this juncture have been swimming in contaminants for all of their lives.
Radioactive cesium doesn’t sink to the sea floor, so fish
swim through it and ingest it through their gills or by eating
organisms that have already ingested it. It is a compound that does
occur naturally in nature, however, the levels of cesium found in the
tuna in 2012 had levels 3 percent higher than is usual. Measurements for this year haven’t been made available, or at least none that I have been able to find. I went looking for the effects of ingesting cesium. This is what I found:
“When contact with radioactive cesium
occurs, which is highly unlikely, a person can experience cell damage
due to radiation of the cesium particles. Due to this, effects such as
nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding may occur. When the exposure
lasts a long time, people may even lose consciousness. Coma or even
death may then follow. How serious the effects are depends upon the resistance of individual persons and the duration of exposure and the concentration a person is exposed to.”
The half life of cesium 134 is 2.0652 years. For cesium 137, the half life is 30.17 years.
The Fukushima disaster is an ongoing
battle with no signs that humans are gaining the upper hand. The only
good news to come out of Japan has later been proven to be false and was
nothing more than attempts by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to
mislead the public and lull them into a sense of security while the
company searched vainly for ways to contain the accident. This incident makes Three Mile Island and Chernobyl pale in comparison. Those were nuclear meltdowns. A nuclear melt-through poses
a much more serious problem and is one that modern technology doesn’t
have the tools to address. Two and a half years later and the
contaminants are still flowing into the ocean and will continue to for
the foreseeable future.
The FDA assures us that our food supply is safe, that the levels of radiation found in fish
samples are within safe limits for consumption. But one has to question
if this is true and, if it is true now, will it remain true? Is this,
like the statements issued from TEPCO, another attempt to quell a public
backlash in the face of an unprecedented event that, as yet, has no solution and no end in sight?
As for me, fish is off the menu.
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