” Are fish from the Pacific Ocean safe to eat? It’s a question that’s back in the news after revelations of highly radioactive water leaking into the ocean from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
“Let me assure you, the situation is under control,” Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said during lobbying for the 2020 Olympics. “There are no health-related problems until now, nor will there be int eh future.”
But the fish tell a different story about the impacts of the March 2011 tsunami that destroyed the Fukshima plant and caused massive amounts of radiation to end up in the Pacific.
About 800 people worldwide will get cancer from radiation due to Fukushima fish eaten to date, according to Georgia Straight calculations. The Straight results relied on a widely used cancer-risk formula developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as radiation levels in 33,000 fish tested by the Japanese Fisheries Agency.
Half the cancers will be fatal. About 500 will be in Japan; 75 will be due to Japanese fish exports to other countries; and 225 will be from fishing in the Pacific by nations other than Japan.
And that’s likely only a small part of the actual long-term cancer impacts from eating the fish. Two nuclear experts who saw the Straight‘s figures said the real cancer toll could be 100 times higher — 80,000 cancers. … ”
Japan Safety : Nuclear Energy Updates 