Gaps in Japanese Seafood Contamination Monitoring: Greenpeace

[kristopher]

Gaps in Japanese Seafood Contamination Monitoring: Greenpeace

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Tokyo- (PanOrient News) Greenpeace today urged the Japanese government to strengthen its food screening and labeling system, after the environmental organization’s new radiation screening station discovered cesium 134 and 137 in seafood samples from five major supermarket chains around Japan.

Fish and shellfish samples were purchased by Greenpeace between September 4 and October 7 from the Aeon, Ito-Yokado, Uny (Apita), Daiei, and Seiyu supermarket chains in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Ibaraki, Fukushima, and Miyagi.

All samples were sent to the Food and Ecology Institute of Japan for third party screening using a germanium detector. Greenpeace said. 34 out of the 60 samples tested at the lab exhibited contamination levels of up to 88 becquerel per kg. Following Chernobyl, the Ukrainian limit remains 150 becquerel per kg.

“While the samples are well below the 500 becquerel per kg limit set by the authorities, the contaminated seafood still represents a health risk, especially to pregnant women and children, and it is being distributed over a wide area,” said Wakao Hanoaka, Greenpeace Japan oceans campaigner. “More concerning, however, is that there is no labeling that notifies consumers if the seafood had been screened, making it impossible for them to make informed decisions.”

Greenpeace has submitted...

http://www.panorientnews.com/en/news.php?k=1322

[FBaggins]

1. Corrected title - "Greenpeace proves that Japanese seafood in supermarkets is entirely safe"

You're welcome.

[kristopher]

2. Thank you for sharing the perspective of the polluter.

Karma is a bitch, Baggins.

[FBaggins]

5. Not a "perspective"... science.

You should try it some time.

The very highest reading they report is lower than the Bq/kg activity of the human body.

Facts are a b1tch, kris.

[kristopher]

6. Thank you for sharing the perspective of the polluter.

Karma is a bitch, Baggins.

[CJvR]

3. I wonder what the...

...pre-Fukupshima average was.

[kristopher]

4. I wonder how long a hot particle lodged in the diverticuli of your colon will take to cause cancer?

[CJvR]

7. At 88 Bq?

Probably long enough for me to die from natural causes.

[kristopher]

8. Unless your 60+ I doubt you'll find an oncologist that would agree with you...

[FBaggins]

9. Wrong yet again. I doubt you'll find an that DON'T agree.

88 Bq is an entirely insignificant amount of radiation.

and that's the the highest level they found in what was very likely a non-random sample.