There seemed to be a recent influx of these articles all over my Facebook feed for whatever reason. While just having a discussion I was pointed to this paper:
I'm no scientist, but I found particular interest in:
"Inferences about the safety of consuming radioactivity-contaminated seafood can be complicated due to complexities in translating food concentration in actual dose to humans, but it is important to put the anthropogenic radioactivity levels in the context of naturally occurring radioactivity. Total radiocesium concentrations of post-Fukushima PBFT were approximately thirty times less than concentrations of naturally occurring 40K in post-Fukushima PBFT and YFT and pre-Fukushima PBFT. Furthermore, before the Fukushima release the dose to human consumers of fish from 137Cs was estimated to be 0.5% of the -emitting 210Po (derived from the decay of 238U, naturally occurring, ubiquitous and relatively nonvarying in the oceans and its biota; not measured here) in those same fish. Thus even though 2011 PBFT showed a 10-fold increase in radiocesium concentrations, 134Cs and 137Cs would still likely provide low doses of radioactivity relative to naturally occurring radionuclides, particularly 210Po and 40K."
From my understanding: yes, radioactivity is being transported and yes, the levels are higher. However, the levels are not significant compared to naturally occurring radioactivity that ends up being consumed.
This was a nice read, I look forward to referencing it and some of these comments.
"Pacific bluefin tuna transport Fukushima-derived radionuclides from Japan to California" http://www.pnas.org/content/109/24/9483.full.pdf+html?sid=2c...
I'm no scientist, but I found particular interest in:
"Inferences about the safety of consuming radioactivity-contaminated seafood can be complicated due to complexities in translating food concentration in actual dose to humans, but it is important to put the anthropogenic radioactivity levels in the context of naturally occurring radioactivity. Total radiocesium concentrations of post-Fukushima PBFT were approximately thirty times less than concentrations of naturally occurring 40K in post-Fukushima PBFT and YFT and pre-Fukushima PBFT. Furthermore, before the Fukushima release the dose to human consumers of fish from 137Cs was estimated to be 0.5% of the -emitting 210Po (derived from the decay of 238U, naturally occurring, ubiquitous and relatively nonvarying in the oceans and its biota; not measured here) in those same fish. Thus even though 2011 PBFT showed a 10-fold increase in radiocesium concentrations, 134Cs and 137Cs would still likely provide low doses of radioactivity relative to naturally occurring radionuclides, particularly 210Po and 40K."
From my understanding: yes, radioactivity is being transported and yes, the levels are higher. However, the levels are not significant compared to naturally occurring radioactivity that ends up being consumed.
This was a nice read, I look forward to referencing it and some of these comments.