

Japan radiation poisoning America? - piokuc
http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/japan-radiation-poisoning-america/

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dalke
There's too much "we don't know but it could be scary" in that posting.

It mentions a PNAS author, Nicholas Fisher. The relevant journal article is at
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/05/30/1221834110](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/05/30/1221834110)
, titled "Fukushima nuclear accident to marine biota and human consumers of
seafood." It includes:

> We showed that doses in all cases were dominated by the naturally occurring
> alpha-emitter 210Po and that Fukushima-derived doses were three to four
> orders of magnitude below 210Po-derived doses. ... Although uncertainties
> remain regarding the assessment of cancer risk at low doses of ionizing
> radiation to humans, the dose received from [Pacific bluefin tuna]
> consumption by subsistence fishermen can be estimated to result in two
> additional fatal cancer cases per 10,000,000 similarly exposed people.

There's a transcript of a conversation with the author at
[http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/nicholasFisherPodcastTranscrip...](http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/nicholasFisherPodcastTranscript.pdf)
:

> We found that, at least for the bluefin tuna, whether they were in Japan or
> migrated to California, the radioactivity was well below the safety limits
> set by Japan, which is considerably stricter than that set by other
> countries such as the US. Now, it’s not to say that all fish in Japanese
> waters are safe. They’re not. There are some fish in Japanese waters —
> bottom-dwelling fish — that do exceed safety limits, and might be of
> concern. So I’m not going to say that all fish in all places are safe. But,
> just because we can measure radioactivity, using very sensitive
> instrumentation, doesn’t mean that there’s a likely detectable increase in
> cancers that will result from consumption of that food.

Yet you'll notice that the wnd.com link never reports the amount of
radioactivity detected, nor compares it to other natural sources of
radioactivity that people are exposed to every day. That's a sign of an
article which spreads fear and worry, not of reporting the issue.

