The Food Chain

I really wish I could find a good source of information that was in print online or where ever. I keep getting bits and pieces from experts on TV, but I can't write down the words fast enough.

Today, there was an expert on radiation and food, talking about radiation in the ocean and fish. He said that the problem with radioactive iodine would go away quickly because of the 8 day half life. The problem with radioactive cesium was a different matter. All of the reporters asked him about:

1. the long half life of 30 years and
2. the food chain where big fish eat the little fish and concentrate the contaminant.

There are examples of #2 in the form of other contaminants in past years like Minamata disease where heavy metals were dumped into the Minamata bay by a company and because of concentration in the food chain (big fish eating little fish and then people eating those fish for years), hundreds if not thousands of Japanese were badly contaminated and their lives ruined by disease.

But the doctor/expert on today's panel said that radioactive cesium behaves in a different way in the body. He said that the big fish eating the little fish and thus concentrating the cesium does not really apply. Much (he did not say how much) of the cesium would be excreted as waste by the fish. (And I have heard, elsewhere, by humans too - one food/radiation expert said that 80% to 90% would be excreted as waste by humans if consumed). Also, any cesium that is taken in by the body would concentrate in the muscles and there is no cancer of the muscles. His contention was that concentration in the food chain was not an issue....

There was also a govt. minister on the panel and one of the reporters wanted "certificates" at the fish shops, for example, saying that the fish was tested and safe to eat. But her contention was that contaminated food, fish or vegetable, would be stopped at the source and never put in the food network in the first place and that we could all rest assured that anything being sold was safe to eat. She was not really in favor of "certificates".