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2011-04-05 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
fish not safe to eat, ocean radiation levels soar
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Posted by anon1 2011-04-05 09:05|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11130 views ]  Top

#1 Back when this started, and people were downplaying it, saying radiation you get when you eat bananas....

no it won't get in the food chain, that's just hysteria.

well here is the radiation contaminating the ocean and getting into the fish

all ready for human consumption

just like bananas, hey.
Posted by anon1 2011-04-05 09:07||   2011-04-05 09:07|| Front Page Top

#2 Don't eat 'em anyway---afraid of bones.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-04-05 10:12||   2011-04-05 10:12|| Front Page Top

#3 *shrug* This is a short term, localized problem. If the radiation levels really are debilitating to the fish, they will quickly die off. The animals and plants around Chernobyl are healthy and thriving -- and perfectly normal ten years later, even the peak predators, where the radiation problems should have accumulated.

A halt in fishing the area will allow seriously depleted fish stocks to rebuild, which is all to the good. The Japanese can live off American and Australian beef for a while, which will do them no harm.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-04-05 10:45||   2011-04-05 10:45|| Front Page Top

#4 
Q: What does the cow say?

A: Eat more chicken!
Posted by Besoeker 2011-04-05 10:54||   2011-04-05 10:54|| Front Page Top

#5 As of an interview this morning with Japan's leading radiation specialist the radiation is almost entirely from iodine whitch will be gone in a few weeks. Fish caught in the imediate area coould be unsafe but fish from further away are OK. The ocean is very large and the water dilutes the radioactive iodine. It's algea that are most infected with the iodine and there again it's half-life is 8 days. It's not a big deal. Yet.
Posted by Deacon Blues 2011-04-05 11:00||   2011-04-05 11:00|| Front Page Top

#6 Maybe the contamination will kill off the worms in sushi.
Posted by  Anonymoose 2011-04-05 11:12||   2011-04-05 11:12|| Front Page Top

#7 Deacon, don't give me that science bullshit! It was Lying Science that got us into this mess in the first place! Chernobyl!!!2111!!!!!!eleventy!!1!
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 11:13||   2011-04-05 11:13|| Front Page Top

#8 Maybe the contamination will kill off the worms in sushi.

Now maybe y'all will consider that the stray molecule of Polonium in sushi isn't Putin's fault, and may actually increase the quality of the sushi by killing the worms.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 11:17||   2011-04-05 11:17|| Front Page Top

#9 Back when this started, and people were downplaying it, saying radiation you get when you eat bananas....

And when THIS turns out to be Yet Another Goddamn Exaggeration, you won't say shit about it, no retraction, no apology, no nothing... just silence. Until the next exaggeration needs to be repeated.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 11:19||   2011-04-05 11:19|| Front Page Top

#10 Just to be serious for a moment.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 11:19||   2011-04-05 11:19|| Front Page Top

#11 How is eating radioactive fish different than eating Fugu?
Posted by Jock the Salmon 2011-04-05 11:20||   2011-04-05 11:20|| Front Page Top

#12 don't give me that science bullshit!

Yeah, man. Don't be trying to inject no facts into this discussion. You can use facts to prove anything that is even remotely true.
(cue Streisand singing "Feelings")
Posted by SteveS 2011-04-05 12:15||   2011-04-05 12:15|| Front Page Top

#13 To elevate the discussion slightly, my dears, enjoy this graphic from the Wall Street Journal on the subject.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-04-05 12:27||   2011-04-05 12:27|| Front Page Top

#14 Have the fish been eating bananas?
Posted by JohnQC 2011-04-05 12:48||   2011-04-05 12:48|| Front Page Top

#15 John wins the thread! :-D
Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2011-04-05 13:23||   2011-04-05 13:23|| Front Page Top

#16 Why would they measure the amount of water by the Ton?

Scarier numbers?
Posted by CrazyFool 2011-04-05 14:32||   2011-04-05 14:32|| Front Page Top

#17 No big, instead of blowfish (fugu), there would be a glowfish temporarily on the menu.
Posted by twobyfour 2011-04-05 14:37||   2011-04-05 14:37|| Front Page Top

#18 A couple of weeks ago I tried to inject some facts into this discussion and I was just about hooted off the blog. Well, here are some more facts from WHO.

sarc Yeah, I know, all these studies are bogus except for the ones that you agree with. /sarc

WHO seems to understate the consequences of Chernobyl, citing a large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer but not much else that can be definitively proven. Thyroid cancer is one of the most survivable of cancers if detected and treated properly. But survivors have to live the rest of their lives taking a pill every day to "replace the loss of thyroid function"...not exactly a picnic, not to mention worrying about recurring tumors.

The WHO goes on to state:

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure, or about 0.6% of the cancer deaths expected in this population due to other causes. Again, these numbers only provide an indication of the likely impact of the accident because of the important uncertainties listed above.

Chernobyl may also cause cancers in Europe outside Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. However, according to UNSCEAR, the average dose to these populations is much lower and so the relative increase in cancer deaths is expected to be much smaller. Predicted estimates are very uncertain and it is very unlikely that any increase in these countries will be detectable using national cancer statistics .3

So, no big deal, huh? Except that Fukushima has not exactly been given the all clear yet and the jury seems to still be out on the question of how this accident compares to Chernobyl. And, of course, unless you are one of the tiny minority of individuals who do get leukemia, breast cancer or some other really nasty type of illness. I certainly wouldn't want to be a TEPCO executive trying to explain it to the mothers in Tokyo who are wondering what they can feed their babies so they won't get cancer. I think you risk losing credibility if you belittle their concerns.

Then, you might ask, at least I do, how does Fukushima compare with our own little accident with oil in the Gulf of Mexico? I dunno. I doubt if anybody does, really. I know about all the guys who died of Black Lung. That's what got my grandfather. I'm glad I never had to mine coal. I'm glad I don't live on the Gulf...or in Chernobyl or in Fukushima.

Don't get me wrong, folks. I make a living by working with computers so I know I need electricity. I know that America's superior understanding of energy, whether nuclear or oil or coal or whatever, gives us a technological and therefore a military edge over the bad guyz in this world. So it's risk vs. reward.

Maybe I'd rather be a fisherman with a wooden boat who reads books by candle light. I don't believe that conservation is a sin. But Mrs. Uluque probably wouldn't be happy with the kind of money I'd make that way. She likes her car and her television, the brat. She likes her refrigerator and her microwave oven. I sincerely believe that I could do without them, but not without her.

Anyway, for me, here is one of the most disturbing aspects of the Fukushima accident:

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2011-04-05 15:08||   2011-04-05 15:08|| Front Page Top

#19 
Redacted by moderator. Comments may be redacted for trolling, violation of standards of good manners, or plain stupidity. Please correct the condition that applies and try again. Contents may be viewed in the sinktrap. Further violations may result in banning.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-04-05 17:29||   2011-04-05 17:29|| Front Page Top

#20 the problem with radiation, trailing wife, is that it's long-term. IT takes years for cancers to develop.

So a child may eat a fish with low-level radiation, which knocks out the wrong bit of DNA but it takes a long time for cancers to grow, maybe 7 years or longer.

Short-lived creatures such as say: a fish with a lifespan of 8 years, that receives its radiation dose in year 4 of life, may not die from it, just carry that radiation in its body.

You catch the fish and eat it, but you are still alive years later when the cancer gestates.

Or if you are 10 years old and you eat it, it may knock out a bit of the dna in your eggs in your ovaries. Later you give birth to a monster. Radiation is terratogenic. It causes birth defects. Two-headed children and so forth.

That is the risk of radiation. It doesn't kill short-lived creatures except in very high doses that would kill everyone straight away. It's the low-level doses that cause ongoing misery for years on affected human populations.

Once it is in the food chain you can't get it out.

As the half-life of many of the radioactive elements stretches into the millions of years, it doesn't just go away. It hangs around and around and around.
Posted by anon1 2011-04-05 17:43||   2011-04-05 17:43|| Front Page Top

#21 Apologies Thing From Snowy Mountain, maybe I didn't read something right, time is tight I might have skated over your real meaning somewhere. Apologies if so. I read the bananas thing as in radiation is nothing to worry about.
Posted by anon1 2011-04-05 17:45||   2011-04-05 17:45|| Front Page Top

#22 TW: Read your post, and am absolutely clueless as to why it was sinktrapped.

You and I don't always agree, but your story deserves to be told, IMHO.....
Posted by Uncle Phester 2011-04-05 18:20||   2011-04-05 18:20|| Front Page Top

#23 Maybe I'd rather be a fisherman with a wooden boat who reads books by candle light

IF I had a nice habitable planet to myself choosing between computer programming with radioactive food and fishing in a wooden boat and reading by candlelight (or not reading at all) would be very easy.

Our choices are: produce our own energy, or be the damn miserable serf of those who do produce energy. None of the population of the United States of America slowed their consumption of oil ONE DAMN IOTA when exploration in the Gulf was shut down as a result of the spill. They just decided to pay the higher prices and keep shoveling money to Saudi Arabia. Money that since they don't produce anything here anymore themselves, is worth less day after day. All the manufactured consumer goods come from China - which is going to keep making massive investments in nuclear power (and drilling for oil, and burning coal) NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS IN JAPAN.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 18:30||   2011-04-05 18:30|| Front Page Top

#24 I am aware of all that, anon1. My father and my husband did cancer research, and my mother spent a good portion of my childhood studying for degrees in health education. So I was immersed in the subject during my formative years, even spending the occasional school holiday at my father's lab, playing with the tumour-ridden experimental rodents to our mutual satisfaction while Daddy did whatever it was that he did at the other end of the room. You and I approach the subject from different perspectives, dear anon1. I am beginning to think no amount of well-intentioned mutual explanation will bridge the gap in our Weltanschauungs.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-04-05 18:32||   2011-04-05 18:32|| Front Page Top

#25 Once it is in the food chain you can't get it out.

IMHO, that's one of the Big Lies, that this iodine contamination is permanently poisoning the area. It's not.

If most of the contamination is iodine:

The half life is 8 days.

This means a year is 45 half lives.

Which means that over the course of a year,

The amount of "radiation" from said iodine is going to decrease by:

1/(2^45)

Which is about 1/3.5 trillion.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 18:38||   2011-04-05 18:38|| Front Page Top

#26 and am absolutely clueless as to why it was sinktrapped.

I sinktrapped it, Uncle Phester. It was an emotional outburst that on reflection didn't add to the conversation. Just because I'm feeling sorry for myself today doesn't mean y'all should have to deal with it, and I should have thought again before hitting Submit. My story is only really of interest to a few experts as a longitudinal study, I'm afraid, and we haven't enough data yet for that.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-04-05 18:42||   2011-04-05 18:42|| Front Page Top

#27 And many of the longer lived isotopes are also emitting much less radiation per unit time than the iodine is. Reporting like this is taking the short term spike from the iodine and reporting it next to the millions-of-years half-life of the transuranics, thereby magnifying the total dose considerably.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 18:43||   2011-04-05 18:43|| Front Page Top

#28 First surprise of the day - trailing wife is a TROLL?

Second - I scanned a bit of it at sinktrap, and it didn't sound like TW, so I assumed someone had abused her nym. {Fred - can that be prevented? Could *I* post as TW????}

Third surprise - it really WAS TW. Well, I shant go back and read it again. If trailing wife wants it in the sinktrap, there it shall live.

Until midnight.
Posted by Bobby 2011-04-05 19:29||   2011-04-05 19:29|| Front Page Top

#29 I had some Basal Cell Carcinoma removed at Bethesda a few years back. Beyond the obvious cause of that, I know dreadfully little about radiation. Someone sent me the followint chart yesterday. Sort of puts it in layman's terms.

Klik here
Posted by Besoeker 2011-04-05 20:05||   2011-04-05 20:05|| Front Page Top

#30 A halt in fishing the area will allow seriously depleted fish stocks to rebuild

It's my contention that most 'environmental disasters' actually help the environment for this and other reasons.
Posted by phil_b 2011-04-05 20:08||   2011-04-05 20:08|| Front Page Top

#31 {Fred - can that be prevented? Could *I* post as TW????}

Not without getting caught, Bobby.
Posted by trailing wife 2011-04-05 21:13||   2011-04-05 21:13|| Front Page Top

#32 While anon1 is not my fav, I do appreciate having had the article posted. Furthermore, I appreciate that the conversation has moved from hysterics about any radiation to discussion about specific contamination. So let's review.

I131 and C137 emit beta and gamma. Beta can barely penetrate clothed skin, and gamma generally goes right on through. The energy density of I131 is much higher than Cs137 because its half-life is so much shorter. Being near a lot of either is not good but the vast majority of the energy from the radiation will not have any affect on a person.

However, the energy problem is turned around if the radioactive material is on the inside of a person instead of on the outside. Most of the beta radiation energy from these will affect the interior of a person. Just as the beta radiation can't get inside from outside, it can't get outside of the body once inside. While these isotopes don't concentrate in eggs or sperm when in the body they do concentrate in certain tissues: iodine concentrates in the thyroid, and cesium concentrates in bone.

So, reasonable people should avoid getting an unusual amount of these isotopes into their bodies from any source including food, water and airborne particles. The key here is to understand the meaning of an unusual amount.

Every year average people are exposed to about 2.6 mSv of radiation from natural sources and another 4 mSv from other things. Some get 10-100 times more, some less. People who get a choose to get a mammogram add about 3 more mSv and double their natural exposure. Choosing to smoke or get a CT scan would add another 10-20 and increase exposure by a bigger factor. These people are normal and don't have children with three heads or other terrible problems.

It is not all good though, the above ground nuclear testing in the 50's exposed everyone in America to about 20 mSv of I131 over the decade with some people getting a lot more. This is estimated to have caused about 50,000 excess cancer cases out of the 160 million people in the country or one in 3000. So while the world didn't come to an end due to the exposure, it really was too much.

So how much is in those contaminated fish? The article says 4,000 becquerels. This is a unit of radioactive decay rate. We want to talk in terms of impact on people so the sievert (Sv) is the right unit. The conversion factor is based on a lot of things, but for this isotope it is 49,000,000 becquerels per sievert. So, eating that whole fish, scales and all is 2 mSv of exposure. Those 2 mSv wouldn't happen all at once like a mammogram, but over the course of a few weeks. In all it would just about double someone's natural dose of radiation. About the same as a mammogram would.

As a result, it is reasonable to be concerned about radioactive contamination of the food that we eat. The Japanese government appears to be acting reasonably in banning sale of fish that have been contaminated to this degree. Remember what the Thing From Snowy Mountain said, because the half-life of the I131 is 8 days, if someone were to freeze the currently banned fish, it would be legal to sell in about a month. This radiation quickly comes out of the food chain over time by itself.

The article also mentions Cs137 at 400 becquerels. That is about 10 times less than the I131, and the conversion from becquerels to sieverts is about 20 times less for it. The total radiation impact from consuming such a fish is 200 times less from the cesium than the iodine right now. There is a bit of a concern with Cs137 though, in that its half-life is 30 years rather than 8 days. Next month while most of the iodine131 will be gone, the cesium137 will still be there. Perhaps if someone ate a lot of fish contaminated with Cs137 for a lot of years they could get their total exposure up to an unhealthy level. But the Japanese have years to monitor for this problem and address it.

The really long lived radioactive elements with half-lives in millions or billions of years like uranium have very low rates of decay and have very low becquerels and very little exposure from radiation. Again these would take a long time of serious and continuous exposure to start to add up.

It seems as if the situation being described in the press is being addressed reasonably. The situation could change tomorrow to become truly dangerous, but it hasn't gotten too bad yet.
Posted by rammer 2011-04-05 22:14||   2011-04-05 22:14|| Front Page Top

#33 Rammer, thank you for posting that bit with conversion to sieverts for both elements. I'm bookmarking it for further reference.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 22:22||   2011-04-05 22:22|| Front Page Top

#34 I had to compress and summarize a bunch of things in that note. Here are nuclear medicine reference sheets with more detailed info.

http://safety.uncc.edu/Forms/Nuclide%20Safety%20Data%20Sheets%20NIH/Nuclide%20Safety%20Data%20Sheets.htm
Posted by rammer 2011-04-05 22:32||   2011-04-05 22:32|| Front Page Top

#35 OK, I bookmarked that one too.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-05 23:03||   2011-04-05 23:03|| Front Page Top

23:58 JosephMendiola
23:55 JosephMendiola
23:46 JosephMendiola
23:38 JosephMendiola
23:27 JosephMendiola
23:05 JosephMendiola
23:03 Thing From Snowy Mountain
22:32 rammer
22:32 Grusose Black2144
22:22 Thing From Snowy Mountain
22:14 rammer
21:13 trailing wife
21:05 Zebulon Thranter9685
21:02 OldSpook
20:44 OldSpook
20:08 phil_b
20:05 Besoeker
19:46 JosephMendiola
19:44 JosephMendiola
19:41 Frank G
19:39 JosephMendiola
19:33 Dale
19:29 Bobby
19:13 Bobby
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